Vote Choice and the Nonseparability of Economic and Social Issues

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>How voters use political issues to elect political candidates is of central importance to our understanding of democratic representation. Research on voting behavior often assumes that American voters hold distinct economic and cultural issue preferences. In this research note, we point out that this does not necessarily imply that preferences for candidates’ positions on the two issue dimensions are also additively separable in voters’ decisions. Analyzing survey data on US presidential elections from 1996 to 2016, we estimate to what extent voters’ economic and socio-cultural preferences are nonseparable and find that the two general dimensions act as substitutes in their decisions. Our finding implies that voting decisions are partially structured by an underlying single dimension, as liberal deviations from a voter’s ideal point on social issues can be compensated by conservative deviations on economic issues.</jats:p>

Non-Separable Preferences in the Statistical Analysis of Roll Call Votes

“…On a more substantial note, research (see, e.g., Finke and Fleig 2013; Lacy 2001a; Stoetzer and Zittlau 2020) highlights that non-separability also matters in other areas beyond legislative behavior. This paper adds to this body of research in general, and introduces a novel model which allows for an explicit test of non-separability in future applications.…”

“…In general, the description of the dimensionality of the political space in the presence of non-separability requires further attention. Non-separability induces an overall reduction of the effective dimensionality of a political space (Stoetzer and Zittlau 2020)—if two dimensions are perfect substitutes or complements (as in budgetary negotiations), the effective dimensionality reduces to one (composed of a mixture of the original two distinct dimensions). In this respect, it would be useful to develop descriptions and distinctions for the evaluation of the effective dimensionality of political spaces in future research.…”

“…What could induce such a relationship across dimensions? In an electoral choice example, Stoetzer and Zittlau (2020) argue that distinct issue dimensions are related at a broader ideological level in voters’ decisions (see also Stoetzer and Zittlau 2015). Therefore, voters may favor a party representing a specific combination of deviations from their unconditional ideal point to an equally distant party representing a different combination of deviations.…”

Constrained Citizens? Ideological Structure and Conflict Extension in the US Electorate, 1980–2016

“…Indeed, the results show that much of the conflict extension literature understates the degree to which citizens' policy attitudes have collapsed onto a single ideological dimension. Mass ideology is not strictly unidimensional, but the two main dimensions (economic and social/cultural) have become increasingly intertwined over the past forty years (see also Stoetzer and Zittlau 2020). The largest growth in unidimensional constraint has occurred among respondents with low and moderate levels of political sophistication, somewhat narrowing the knowledge gap in ideological thinking.…”

I vote NOTA: Ideological Expanses of Partisanship in India

“…For instance, future research could attempt to use ranked-choice methods to understand party preferences. Future work could also attempt to explore voter-party linkages by using parallel surveys of party elites and citizens (e.g., Stoetzer & Zittlau, 2020). Further, these findings have applicability in better understanding political communication and political psychology.…”