Valence Politics with Activists: Empirical and Theoretical Models of Multicandidate Competition

积极分子的效价政治：多候选人竞争的经验和理论模型

• 批准号: 0241732
• 负责人: Norman Schofield
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: Washington University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-05-01 至 2004-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0241732&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Valence; Politics; Activists; Empirical; Theoretical

The spatial voting model is a sophisticated methodological device to study the interaction of political agents (whether candidates, or political leaders) and voters. However, the theory has predicted that all agents will be drawn to the electoral center in order to maximize votes. The conclusion, then, is that political competition is void of any relevance. Past research by the principal investigator and his colleagues strongly suggests that this conclusion is empirically invalid, both in polities based on proportional representation and in those based on plurality rule. Recent work by the researcher has shown that the mean voter theorem requires a domain constraint, on the support of the distribution of preferred policies of the electorate. Empirical analysis shows this constraint to be violated in polities as varied as Israel, Britain, the US, the Netherlands, etc. Instead, if electoral uncertainty is low, then parties should optimally position themselves at a distance from each other in the policy space determined by the differences in popularity (or valence) of the agents. "Popularity" is measured in the probit and logit models as constants in the voter utility functions. Under proportional representation, agents with low popularity are shown to leave the electoral center. Under plurality rule (as in Britain), agents with high popularity will contest the center. This research models the way activist coalitions make contributions of time and money to their preferred candidates. In order to maximize vote shares, agents will optimize between activist coalitions and the electoral pull of the center. The theory presented here develops the nature of response by agents to these electoral incentives. However, the rationality of activist contributions has not, as yet, been incorporated into the model. The investigation involves collaboration with Paul Whiteley of Essex University. Whiteley's work has focused on British leader popularity and activist support, and he has developed regression models of the relationships between these variables. The collaborative research draws on this research, together with completed probit models of voter and elite preferences, to construct an interactive model of activist behavior and political response.

空间投票模型是一种研究政治代理人(无论是候选人还是政治领袖)与选民互动的复杂方法。然而，该理论预测，为了最大化选票，所有代理人都将被吸引到选举中心。因此，得出的结论是，政治竞争没有任何相关性。这位首席研究员和他的同事过去的研究强烈表明，无论是在基于比例代表制的政体中，还是在基于多数原则的政体中，这一结论都是经验上无效的。这位研究人员最近的工作表明，平均选民定理需要一个区域约束，即支持选民偏好政策的分布。经验分析表明，在以色列、英国、美国、荷兰等不同的政体中，这一限制都会被违反。相反，如果选举的不确定性很低，那么各政党应该在由代理人的受欢迎程度(或价位)差异决定的政策空间中，最好地让自己彼此保持一段距离。“受欢迎程度”在Probit和Logit模型中作为投票者效用函数中的常量来衡量。在比例代表制下，支持率较低的代理人被显示离开选举中心。在多数制下(就像在英国一样)，人气很高的经纪人将与中锋竞争。这项研究模拟了激进分子联盟为他们青睐的候选人贡献时间和金钱的方式。为了最大限度地扩大选票份额，代理人将在活动人士联盟和中间派的选举拉动之间进行优化。这里提出的理论发展了代理人对这些选举激励措施的反应的性质。然而，到目前为止，维权人士捐款的合理性尚未纳入模型。这项调查涉及与埃塞克斯大学的保罗·怀特利合作。怀特利的工作重点是英国领导人的受欢迎程度和积极分子的支持，他还开发了这些变量之间关系的回归模型。合作研究利用这项研究，结合选民和精英偏好的完整概率模型，构建了激进主义行为和政治反应的互动模型。