A Behavioral Theory of Elections

A Behavioral Theory of Elections
Author: Jonathan Bendor
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2011-02-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 069113507X

Most theories of elections assume that voters and political actors are fully rational. This title provides a behavioral theory of elections based on the notion that all actors - politicians as well as voters - are only boundedly rational.

Party Competition and Responsible Party Government

Party Competition and Responsible Party Government
Author: James Adams
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2001
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780472087679

DIVA marriage of behavioral and formal theory to explain the electoral strategies of political parties /div

A Unified Theory of Party Competition

A Unified Theory of Party Competition
Author: James F. Adams
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2005-03-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9781139444002

This book integrates spatial and behavioral perspectives - in a word, those of the Rochester and Michigan schools - into a unified theory of voter choice and party strategy. The theory encompasses both policy and non-policy factors, effects of turnout, voter discounting of party promises, expectations of coalition governments, and party motivations based on policy as well as office. Optimal (Nash equilibrium) strategies are determined for alternative models for presidential elections in the US and France, and for parliamentary elections in Britain and Norway. These polities cover a wide range of electoral rules, number of major parties, and governmental structures. The analyses suggest that the more competitive parties generally take policy positions that come close to maximizing their electoral support, and that these vote-maximizing positions correlate strongly with the mean policy positions of their supporters.

The Oxford Handbook of American Elections and Political Behavior

The Oxford Handbook of American Elections and Political Behavior
Author: Jan E. Leighley
Publisher: Oxford University Press (UK)
Total Pages: 796
Release: 2012-02-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199604517

The Oxford Handbooks of American Politics are the essential guide to the study of American political life in the 21st Century. With engaging contributions from the major figures in the field The Oxford Handbook of American Elections and Political Behavior provides the key point of reference for anyone working in American Politics today

A Behavioral Theory of Elections

A Behavioral Theory of Elections
Author: Jonathan Bendor
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2011-01-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1400836808

Most theories of elections assume that voters and political actors are fully rational. While these formulations produce many insights, they also generate anomalies--most famously, about turnout. The rise of behavioral economics has posed new challenges to the premise of rationality. This groundbreaking book provides a behavioral theory of elections based on the notion that all actors--politicians as well as voters--are only boundedly rational. The theory posits learning via trial and error: actions that surpass an actor's aspiration level are more likely to be used in the future, while those that fall short are less likely to be tried later. Based on this idea of adaptation, the authors construct formal models of party competition, turnout, and voters' choices of candidates. These models predict substantial turnout levels, voters sorting into parties, and winning parties adopting centrist platforms. In multiparty elections, voters are able to coordinate vote choices on majority-preferred candidates, while all candidates garner significant vote shares. Overall, the behavioral theory and its models produce macroimplications consistent with the data on elections, and they use plausible microassumptions about the cognitive capacities of politicians and voters. A computational model accompanies the book and can be used as a tool for further research.

Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior

Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior
Author: Russell J. Dalton
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 1010
Release: 2007
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0199270120

The Oxford Handbooks of Political Science is a ten-volume set of reference books offering authoritative and engaging critical overviews of the state of political science. Each volume focuses on a particular part of the discipline, with volumes on Public Policy, Political Theory, Political Economy, Contextual Political Analysis, Comparative Politics, International Relations, Law and Politics, Political Behavior, Political Institutions, and Political Methodology. The project as a whole is under the General Editorship of Robert E. Goodin, with each volume being edited by a distinguished international group of specialists in their respective fields. The books set out not just to report on the discipline, but to shape it. The series will be an indispensable point of reference for anyone working in political science and adjacent disciplines. What does democracy expect of its citizens, and how do the citizenry match these expectations? This Oxford Handbook examines the role of the citizen in contemporary politics, based on essays from the world's leading scholars of political behavior research. The recent expansion of democracy has both given new rights and created new responsibilities for the citizenry. These political changes are paralleled by tremendous advances in our empirical knowledge of citizens and their behaviors through the institutionalization of systematic, comparative study of contemporary publics--ranging from the advanced industrial democracies to the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, to new survey research on the developing world. These essays describe how citizens think about politics, how their values shape their behavior, the patterns of participation, the sources of vote choice, and how public opinion impacts on governing and public policy. This is the most comprehensive review of the cross-national literature of citizen behavior and the relationship between citizens and their governments. It will become the first point of reference for scholars and students interested in these key issues.

Understanding Elections through Statistics

Understanding Elections through Statistics
Author: Ole J. Forsberg
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2020-11-02
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000205746

Elections are random events. From individuals deciding whether to vote, to people deciding for whom to vote, to election authorities deciding what to count, the outcomes of competitive democratic elections are rarely known until election day...or beyond. Understanding Elections through Statistics: Polling, Prediction, and Testing explores this random phenomenon from two points of view: predicting the election outcome using opinion polls and testing the election outcome using government-reported data. Written for those with only a brief introduction to statistics, this book takes you on a statistical journey from how polls are taken to how they can—and should—be used to estimate current popular opinion. Once an understanding of the election process is built, we turn toward testing elections for evidence of unfairness. While holding elections has become the de facto proof of government legitimacy, those electoral processes may hide a dirty little secret of the government illicitly ensuring a favorable election outcome. This book includes these features designed to make your statistical journey more enjoyable: Vignettes of elections, including maps, to provide concrete bases for the material In-chapter cues to help one avoid the heavy math—or to focus on it End-of-chapter problems designed to review and extend that which was covered in the chapter Many opportunities to turn the power of the R statistical environment to the enclosed election data files, as well as to those you find interesting From these features, it is clear the audience for this book is quite diverse. This text provides mathematics for those interested in mathematics, but also offers detours for those who just want a good read and a deeper understanding of elections. Author Ole J. Forsberg holds PhDs in both political science and statistics. He currently teaches mathematics and statistics in the Department of Mathematics at Knox College in Galesburg, IL.

Formal Models of Domestic Politics

Formal Models of Domestic Politics
Author: Scott Gehlbach
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2021-09-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1108482066

An accessible treatment of important formal models of domestic politics, fully updated and now including a chapter on nondemocracy.

Voting Experiments

Voting Experiments
Author: André Blais
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2016-10-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 331940573X

This book presents a collection of papers illustrating the variety of "experimental" methodologies used to study voting. Experimental methods include laboratory experiments in the tradition of political psychology, laboratory experiments with monetary incentives, in the economic tradition, survey experiments (varying survey, question wording, framing or content), as well as various kinds of field experimentation. Topics include the behavior of voters (in particular turnout, vote choice, and strategic voting), the behavior of parties and candidates, and the comparison of electoral rules.