Estimating the effects of activists in two-party and multi-party systems: comparing the United States and Israel

Schofield, Norman; Claassen, Christopher; Ozdemir, Ugur; Zakharov, Alexei

doi:10.1007/s00355-010-0507-0

Cited by 25 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…The analysis performed in Schofield et al (2011c) also shows that other small parties would also locate far from the mean. This explains why Israel's 1996 convergence coefficient…”

Section: Convergence In Proportional Systems?mentioning

confidence: 90%

Do parties converge to the electoral mean in all political systems?

Gallego

Schofield²

2015

Journal of Theoretical Politics

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Many formal models suggest that parties or candidates should locate at the electoral mean. Yet, there is no consistent evidence of such convergence across political systems. Valence Theorem proves that when valence differences across parties are large, there is nonconvergence to the mean. Convergence to the mean depends on the value of the convergence coefficient, c. When c is high there is significant centrifugal tendency acting on the parties and when c is low there is a significant centripetal tendency acting on the parties. In this paper we apply the stochastic valence model of elections in various countries under different political regimes and use the convergence coefficient of these elections to classify political systems. Our results show that the convergence coefficient varies across elections in a country, across countries using the same political system and across political regimes. For countries using proportional representation, namely Israel, Turkey and Poland, the centrifugal tendency is very high and parties move away from the mean. In the majoritarian polities of the United States and the UK, parties are located at the mean, as the centrifugal tendency is very low. In anocracies, the autocrat imposes limitations on how far from the origin the opposition parties can move but the equilibrium is fragile.

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“…The analysis performed in Schofield et al (2011c) also shows that other small parties would also locate far from the mean. This explains why Israel's 1996 convergence coefficient…”

Section: Convergence In Proportional Systems?mentioning

confidence: 90%

Do parties converge to the electoral mean in all political systems?

Gallego

Schofield²

2015

Journal of Theoretical Politics

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“…(Ansolabare and Snyder [ 17 ], Groseclose [ 18 ], Aragones and Palfrey [ 19 , 20 ], Schofield [ 21 ], Schofield et al [ 22 ], Miller and Schofield [ 23 ], Schofield and Miller [ 24 ], Peress [ 25 ]) Empirical work, based on multinomial logit (MNL) methods, has also shown the importance of electoral judgements in analyses of elections in the United States and the United Kingdom. (Clarke et al [ 8 , 26 – 28 ], Schofield [ 29 ], Schofield et al [ 30 , 31 ], Scotto et al [ 7 ]) These empirical models of elections have a “probabilistic” component. That is, they all assume that “voter utility” is partly “Downsian” in the sense that it is based on the distance between party positions and voter preferred positions and partly due to valence.…”

Section: The Spatial Voting Model With Valencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…We construct stochastic models of the 2000, 2004, and 2008 US presidential elections using survey data taken from the American National Election Surveys (ANES). The factor analysis done on ten survey questions taken from the ANES (See Schofield et al [ 30 , 31 ] for the list of survey questions and the factor loadings and the full analysis of the US elections.) led us to conclude that voters preferences can be represented along the economic ( E = x -axis) and social ( S = y -axis) dimensions for all three elections.…”

Section: Mnl Models Of the Elections Of Various Countriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Convergence Coefficient across Political Systems

Gallego

Schofield

2013

The Scientific World Journal

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Formal work on the electoral model often suggests that parties or candidates should locate themselves at the electoral mean. Recent research has found no evidence of such convergence. In order to explain nonconvergence, the stochastic electoral model is extended by including estimates of electoral valence. We introduce the notion of a convergence coefficient, c. It has been shown that high values of c imply that there is a significant centrifugal tendency acting on parties. We used electoral surveys to construct a stochastic valence model of the the elections in various countries. We find that the convergence coefficient varies across elections in a country, across countries with similar regimes, and across political regimes. In some countries, the centripetal tendency leads parties to converge to the electoral mean. In others the centrifugal tendency dominates and some parties locate far from the electoral mean. In particular, for countries with proportional electoral systems, namely, Israel, Turkey, and Poland, the centrifugal tendency is very high. In the majoritarian polities of the United States and Great Britain, the centrifugal tendency is very low. In anocracies, the autocrat imposes limitations on how far from the origin the opposition parties can move.

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“…Therefore, in contrast to the Downsian approach, the stochastic electoral model with valence seems to be a more appropriate model to characterize the 'impossible game. ' We recover political parties' positions in Argentina using a mixed logit stochastic model (Schofield, 2008b;Schofield and Zakharov, 2010;Schofield et al, 2011aSchofield et al, , 2011bSchofield et al, , 2011cSchofield et al, , 2011dSchofield et al, , 2011e, 2011f, 2012. In the standard empirical estimation, party valences are assumed to be the constant terms of the voter utility functions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An empirical stochastic model of Argentina’s Impossible Game (1955–1966)

Micozzi

Saiegh²

2015

Journal of Theoretical Politics

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Argentine politics from 1955 to 1966 was characterized by the conflict between the Peronists and the anti-Peronists. While each camp could veto the other's project, neither could advance their own agenda. In his canonical interpretation, O'Donnell (Modernization and BureaucraticAuthoritarianism. Berkeley, CA: Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1973) concluded that party democracy during this era was tantamount to an 'impossible game.' While we recognize the significance of O'Donnell's analysis, we believe that it presents a number of problems. To address its main shortcomings we consider a spatial model that emphasizes the importance of voters' judgments about the characteristics of party leaders. We recover the positions of Argentine parties using a mixed logit stochastic model and an original dataset of recorded votes in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies during this era. Our results suggest that the electoral logic forced the Peronist party to adopt relatively radical positions away from the center in order to maximize its support. In turn, non-Peronist parties had little incentive to seek the support of moderate, and thus 'unrepresented,' Peronist voters by locating themselves at the electoral mean. In particular, valence differences associated with Peronism prevented larger parties from converging toward the center. We thus conjecture that the rules of the impossible game were a constraint imposed by the populace on Argentine political elites rather than a choice made by the latter behind the people's back.

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Estimating the effects of activists in two-party and multi-party systems: comparing the United States and Israel

Cited by 25 publications

References 34 publications

Do parties converge to the electoral mean in all political systems?

Do parties converge to the electoral mean in all political systems?

The Convergence Coefficient across Political Systems

An empirical stochastic model of Argentina’s Impossible Game (1955–1966)

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