Strategic Voting for the Israeli Knesset, 2003

以色列将于2003年1月28日举行议会选举。这笔用于探索性研究的小额赠款是为了帮助首席调查员和一名高级研究生在以色列全国选举调查中纳入一系列问题，以研究在那次选举中是否有战略性投票。这项研究特别及时和重要，并建立在1999年以色列选举中由首席调查员和合作者组成的团队开始的战略投票工作的经验基础上。研究之所以重要，是因为：1)先前的工作让人怀疑，在这个世界上几乎最完美的比例代表制选举制度中，存在相当程度的战略投票(投票不符合选民的真实偏好顺序，但旨在产生选民更希望得到的结果，而不是按照选民真实偏好顺序投票的社会选择)。莫里斯·杜弗格和加里·考克斯的理论至少暗示，这种投票即使不是完全不存在，也应该是极其罕见的。然而，早期的研究表明，这与简单的多数制投票一样普遍，理论上认为多数制投票应该是广泛的。似乎没有人，包括首席调查员，能够采取所需的全套措施来测试这种可能性，更不用说如果提示性证据得到证实，甚至开始调查其发生的理由；2)这是自选举法修改以来的第一次以色列议会选举，这种变化提供了一个独特的机会来测试改变机构规则对投票行为的影响；3)公关制度研究相对于多元公关制度缺乏理论发展的一个原因是，在多党公关制度中难以确定政党的选举目标，从而这些目标对选民行为的影响。正在调查三个最突出的目标中每一个的衡量标准，其中两个是在对大众进行调查时使用的新措施。首席调查员能够衡量选民对多党比例代表制下的政党所面临的战略环境的反应。这项调查将产生一个数据集，对其他对这一主题感兴趣的学者具有巨大的价值。这项研究有可能增进我们对这一主题的理解，并具有更广泛的社会价值，帮助我们了解投票制度对选举结果的影响。

Israel will hold elections on January 28, 2003 for the Knesset, their national legislature. This Small Grant for Exploratory Research is to assist the Principal Investigator and an advanced graduate student in including a battery of questions in the Israel National Election survey to study whether there is strategic voting in that election. This study is particularly timely and important and builds empirically on work begun on strategic voting in the 1999 Israeli election by a team that includes the Principal Investigator and a collaborator.The research is significant because: 1) prior work offers the suspicion that there is a considerable degree of strategic voting (voting not in accord with the voter's true preference order but meant to bring about an outcome more desired by the voter than the social choice that would result from voting in accord with the voter's true preference order) in this, the most nearly perfect proportional representation electoral system in the world. Theory, such as that from Maurice Duverger and Gary Cox implies at least that such voting should be extremely rare, if not none existent entirely. And yet, earlier work suggests that it is as common as in simply plurality voting, where theory says that it should be extensive. It appears that no one, including the Principal Investigator has been able to employ the full set of measures needed to test for this possibility, let alone even begin to investigate the reasoning for its occurrence, should the suggestive evidence be confirmed; 2) this is the first Israeli Knesset election since the change in electoral law and such change provides a unique opportunity to test for the effect of changing institutional rules on voting behavior; 3) one reason for the lack of theoretical development of the study of PR systems, relative to plurality systems, is the difficulty in determining the electoral goals of parties in a multi-party PR system, and thus the impact of these goals on voter behavior. Measure of each of the three most prominent goals are being investigated, two of which are novel measures used in surveys of the mass public. The Principal Investigator is in a position to be able to measure how, if at all, voters react to the strategic circumstances facing political parties in multi-party, Proportional Representation systems.This investigation will yield a data set that will be of enormous value to other scholars interested in the topic. The study has the potential to enhance our understanding of the topic and to have a broader social value of helping us to understand the effects of voting systems on electoral outcomes.