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Theory: The spatial model of elections can better be represented by using conditional logit than by multinomial logit. The spatial model, and random utility models in general, suffer f r om a failure to adequately consider the sub stitutability of candidates sharing similar or identical issue positions. Hypotheses: Multinomial logit is not much better than successive applications of binomial logit. Conditional logit allows for considering more interesting political questions than does multinomial logit. The spatial model may not correspond to voter decision-making in multiple-candidate settings. Multi nomial probit allows for a relaxation of the IIA condition and this should improve estimates of the effect of adding or removing parties. Methods: Comparisons of binomial logit, multinomial logit, conditional logit, and multinomial probit on simulated data and survey data from a three-party election. Results: Multinomial logit offers almost no benefits over binomial logit. Con ditional logit is capable of examining movements by parties, whereas multi nomial logit is not. Multinomial probit performs better than conditional logit when considering the effects of altering the set of choices available to voters.

Governments of the Left and Right have distinct partisan economic policies and objectives that they would prefer to pursue. Their propensity to do so, however, is constrained by their desire for reelection. We argue that the ability of governments to further their partisan interests and preside over reelectable macroeconomic outcomes simultaneously is dependent on the organization of the domestic economy, particularly the labor movement. We hypothesize that there are two different paths to desirable macroeconomic performance. In countries with densely and centrally organized labor movements, leftist governments can promote economic growth and reduce inflation and unemployment. Conversely, in countries with weak labor movements, rightist governments can pursue their partisan-preferred macroeconomic strategies and achieve similarly beneficial macroeconomic outcomes. Performance will be poorer in other cases. These hypotheses are supported by analysis of pooled annual time series data for 16 advanced industrial democracies between 1967 and 1984.

Whether citizens vote strategically, using their votes to defeat their least-preferred candidate, or vote sincerely, voting for their first choice among the alternatives, is a question of longstanding interest. We offer two innovations in searching for the answer to this question. First, we begin with a more consistent model of sincere voting in multiparty democratic systems than has been presented in the literature to date. Secondly, we incorporate a new operationalization of the objective potential for strategic behaviour. We offer a test of strategic voting in the 1987 British general election based on the variance in strategic setting across constituencies in Britain. We allow voters to use available information about the relative standings of parties in their constituency in deciding whether or not to cast a strategic vote. We estimate a lower level of strategic voting than many other methods have estimated. We also demonstrate that the use of self-reported vote motivation causes errors in estimating the amount of strategic voting, and that this problem is exacerbated the further from the election the self-report is obtained.Whether voters in democratic systems are 'rational' has long been under debate. One of the central points of contention has been whether the Riker and Ordeshook 'calculus of voting' is sound empirically.

Studies of partisan identification in the U.S. have concentrated on Anglo Americans. We argue that by focusing only on the descendents of naturalized, mostly white, immigrants, that previous research may have been biased toward largely sociological accounts for the development of partisan attitudes. Here we study the partisan affiliations of Latino voters and argue that by examining their partisan attitudes we should find that their partisanship is more explicitly political than Anglos. We utilize a telephone survey of Latino likely voters in the 2000 presidential election and find that Latino voter partisanship is shaped by both political and social factors.

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Abstract:Expanding the large literature which investigates the characteristics of citizen and voter trust in government we analyze the heretofore neglected topic of voter trust in the electoral process. In this paper, we present results from three national surveys in which we asked voters the confidence they have that their vote for president in the 2000 or 2004 election was recorded as intended. We examine voter responses using both descriptive and multivariate analyses to determine the overall level of voter confidence and then analyze the characteristics which influence the likelihood a voter is confident in their ballot being recorded accurately. Our findings show that a significant portion of the U.S. voting population does not possess confidence that their vote will be counted as intended and similar to the literature on trust in government we find political identification significantly impacts a voter's level of confidence. Contrary to the bulk of findings concerning citizen trust, we find demographic variables such as race and education significantly impact the likelihood an individual is confident their vote will be recorded as intended.