Nonpolicy Factors in Party Competition

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Laver ◽  
Ernest Sergenti
Keyword(s):  
Party Competition ◽  
Policy Position ◽  
Policy Space ◽  
Political Candidates ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Lower Valence ◽  
Ideal Points ◽  
Party Policy Positions

Moving beyond the assumption that voters care about only the party policy positions on offer, this chapter models the possibility that they also care about perceived “nonpolicy” attributes of political candidates, such as competence, charisma, honesty. These characterize what have become known as “valence” models of party competition. Voters balance utility derived from each candidate's nonpolicy valence against utility derived from the candidate's policy position. The contribution of valence models has been to explain why all parties do not all converge on regions of the policy space with the highest densities of voter ideal points. Higher valence parties tend to go to regions of the policy space with higher voter densities, while lower valence parties are forced to steer well clear of these parties and pick policy positions in regions with lower voter densities.

Benchmarking the Baseline Model

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Laver ◽  
Ernest Sergenti
Keyword(s):  
Policy Preferences ◽  
Policy Space ◽  
Baseline Model ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Voter Preferences ◽  
Optimal Representation ◽  
Ideal Points ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Party Policy Positions ◽  
The Ideal

This chapter begins the investigation of multiparty competition using the baseline model specified in Chapter 3 and methods and procedures specified in Chapter 4. The most significant results concern the representativeness of evolved configurations of party policy positions. In symmetric populations, the ideal points of voters are not best represented by a set of (Hunter) parties who compete for their support by trying to find popular policy positions. Instead, voter preferences are better represented by a set of (Aggregator) parties that do not compete with each other on policy at all but instead seek to represent the policy preferences only of their current supporters. This happens because the dynamics of vote-seeking competition in this setting cause parties to set policy positions closer to the center of the policy space than would be needed for optimal representation—while at the same time avoiding the dead center of the space.

Electoral Demand, Party Competition, and Family Policy: The Politics of a New Policy Field

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanna Schwander
Keyword(s):  
Family Policy ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Policy Position ◽  
Family Policies ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Party Positions ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Voter Groups ◽  
Southern European Countries

This chapter studies the effect of changing electoral demand and party competition on parties’ family policy orientation in two continental and two southern European countries. Changes in the electoral landscapes represent a necessary but not sufficient condition that provides parties with an incentive to reform their family policy position. As the electoral relevance of the core constituency of both center-right and center-left parties is declining, both center-left and center-right parties are prompted to use progressive family policies to attract new voter groups. Yet, the chapter shows that the strategic configuration of parties influences the extent to which center-right parties modernize their family policy positions. The arguments are tested using data on attitudes toward gender roles and family policy from the European and World Values Survey and a new database on party positions on family policy in two continental and two southern European countries in the last two decades.

The Informational Role of Party Leader Changes on Voter Perceptions of Party Positions

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 977-996 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Fernandez-Vazquez ◽  
Zeynep Somer-Topcu
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Models ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Party Positions ◽  
European Parties ◽  
Citizen Perceptions ◽  
Party Policy Positions

According to spatial models of elections, citizen perceptions of party policy positions are a key determinant of voting choices. Yet recent scholarship from Europe suggests that voters do not adjust their perceptions according to what parties advocate in their campaigns. This article argues that voters develop a more accurate understanding of parties’ ideological positions following a leadership change because a new leader increases the credibility of party policy offerings. Focusing on Western European parties in the 1979–2012 period, it shows that having a new leader is a necessary condition for voters to more accurately perceive the left–right placements of opposition parties. Voters do not use party platforms to form perceptions of incumbent parties’ positions, regardless of whether the leader is new or veteran. These results have important implications for models of party competition and democratic representation.

A Baseline ABM of Party Competition

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Laver ◽  
Ernest Sergenti
Keyword(s):  
Decision Rules ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Baseline Model ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Personal Ideal ◽  
Ideal Policy ◽  
Party Policy Positions ◽  
The Ideal

This chapter specifies the “baseline” agent-based model of dynamic multiparty competition, which derives from an article published by (Laver 2005). This assumes that each voter has in mind some personal ideal “package” of policy positions and supports the political party that offers the policy package closest to this. The dynamic system at the heart of the model is as follows: voters support their “closest” party in this sense; party leaders adapt the policy packages they offer in light of the revealed pattern of voter support; voters reconsider which party they support in light of the revealed pattern of party policy packages; and this process continues forever. This recursive model describes policy-based party competition as a complex system, and the baseline model specifies three decision rules that party leaders may deploy when they choose party policy positions in such a setting. These rules are Sticker (always keep the same position), Aggregator (move policy to the centroid of the ideal policy positions of your current supporters), and Hunter (if your last policy move increased your support, make another move in the same direction; or else change heading and move in a different direction).

Policy and Party Competition in Japan after the Election of 2000

2003 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
JUNKO KATO ◽  
MICHAEL LAVER
Keyword(s):  
Party Competition ◽  
Government Formation ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Japanese Politics ◽  
Party Policy Positions ◽  
Expert Surveys

This paper reports the results of the latest in a series of expert surveys of party policy positions in Japan and considers some of the implications of these results for our understanding of party competition and government formation in recent Japanese politics.

Policy and the Dynamics of Political Competition

2005 ◽  
Vol 99 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL LAVER
Keyword(s):  
Party System ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Decision Rules ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Policy Position ◽  
Opinion Poll ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
Party Support

This paper proposes a model that takes the dynamic agent-based analysis of policy-driven party competition into a multiparty environment. In this, voters continually review party support and switch parties to increase their expectations; parties continually readapt policy positions to the shifting affiliations of voters. Different algorithms for party adaptation are explored, including “Aggregator” (adapt party policy to the ideal policy positions of party supporters), Hunter (repeat policy moves that were rewarded; otherwise make random moves), Predator (move party policy toward the policy position of the largest party), and “Sticker” (never change party policy). Strong trends in the behavior of parties using different methods of adaptation are explored. The model is then applied in a series of experiments to the dynamics of a real party system, described in a published opinion poll time series. This paper reports first steps toward endogenizing key features of the process, including the birth and death of parties, internal party decision rules, and voter ideal points.

A model of electoral competition between national and regional parties

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mihir Bhattacharya
Keyword(s):  
Median Voter ◽  
Electoral Competition ◽  
Policy Position ◽  
National Party ◽  
Dimensional Model ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Regional Parties ◽  
Homogeneous Regions ◽  
Outcome Function

We consider a one-dimensional model of electoral competition with national and regional parties. There are two regions and three parties—one national party and one regional party for each region. We divide the paper into two parts— homogeneous and heterogeneous regions. In the former, the policy positions of the national party and the regional party of the region with the greater number of constituencies coincide with the favorite policy position of the region-wide median voter. In the latter, the national party chooses a policy position in a maximal isolation set, while the two regional parties choose policies on the same side of the national party’s policy as their own respective region-wide medians. For a given outcome function, the national party performs better when the regions are heterogeneous. In the homogeneous regions case, the national party can at best do as well as the regional party of the region with the greater number of constituencies. Our results are broadly consistent with intuition and evidence.

Global Ideological Conflict

2021 ◽  
pp. 17-40
Author(s):  
Erik Voeten
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Regime Type ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
United Nations General ◽  
Government Ideology ◽  
Institutional Politics ◽  
Ideal Points ◽  
United Nations General Assembly ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter discusses the definition of institutions and then of ideology. Ideology is a set of widely understood more or less cohesive and stable ideas about how a set of issues should be resolved and who should resolve them. It is a vehicle not just for spreading values but also for transmitting information. This information is especially valuable in contexts where actors care deeply about the future intentions of others, including international institutional politics. The chapter then assesses how this definition differs from other treatments in the international relations literature, how ideology constrains policy positions, and what global ideological debates are about. It also outlines an approach to estimate the ideological positions of states from votes in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). It evaluates the validity of this measure. For example, changes in UNGA ideal points correlate strongly with various indicators of liberalism: such as changes in government ideology, regime type, and capital openness.

Partisanship and Policy Choice: Issue Preferences in the British Electorate, February 1974

1976 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Alt ◽  
Bo Särlvik ◽  
Ivor Crewe
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Policy Attitudes ◽  
Perceptions And Attitudes ◽  
Electoral Behaviour ◽  
Issue Knowledge ◽  
New Literature ◽  
Party Policy Positions

Inherent in many models of voting, as well as in defences of representative democracy, is the assumption that the voting public has knowledge of and opinions about public policy issues. In recent years in the United States a stream of scholarly articles has been devoted to assessing not just the extent to which issue knowledge and opinions exist but also the extent to which they influence electoral decisions. This new literature suggests that issue-related perceptions and attitudes are rather more important in the electoral process than earlier studies had suggested. This increased focus on issues appears to reflect both methodological changes in the analysis of them and also real changes in the importance of policy issues in American electoral politics. By contrast, students of British electoral behaviour have made few systematic attempts to assess the fit between popular attitudes and knowledge of party policy positions on issues. Instead, the conventional wisdom is repeated which holds that ‘a majority of people are either ignorant of, or disagree with, the specific policies of the party they support’. The implication of this seems to be that electors' familiarity with issues is so low, and the holding of policy attitudes by them so uncommon, that rigorous analysis of issues in the context of electoral politics is unnecessary.

Welfare at slaughter, good workplace and bTB policy positions: a progress report

2019 ◽  
Vol 185 (24) ◽  
pp. 767.1-767
Keyword(s):  
Progress Report ◽  
Policy Position ◽  
Policy Positions

BVA is developing new policy position papers in three key areas. BVA Council members were invited to contribute feedback on drafts of each paper.

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