Strategic Voting for the Israeli Knesset, 2003

以色列将于2003年1月28日举行国家立法机构以色列议会的选举。这项探索性研究小额资助旨在协助首席研究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，以研究该选举中是否存在战略投票。这项研究特别及时和重要，并建立在1999年以色列选举中开始的战略投票工作的经验基础上，该工作由包括首席研究员和合作者在内的一个团队开展。这项研究意义重大，因为：1)先前的工作提出了一种怀疑，即在这个世界上最接近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，但意味着带来选民更希望的结果，而不是根据选民的真实偏好顺序投票所产生的社会选择）。Maurice Duverger和Gary Cox等人的理论表明，这种投票即使不是完全不存在，至少也应该是极其罕见的。然而，早期的研究表明，它与简单的多数投票一样普遍，理论认为它应该是广泛的。似乎没有人，包括首席调查员在内，能够采用所需的全套措施来检验这种可能性，更不用说在暗示性证据得到证实的情况下开始调查其发生的原因了；2)这是自选举法修改以来的第一次以色列议会选举，这种修改提供了一个独特的机会来检验制度规则变化对投票行为的影响；3)相对于多数制而言，公共关系制度研究缺乏理论发展的一个原因是，在多党制公共关系制度中，难以确定政党的选举目标，从而难以确定这些目标对选民行为的影响。目前正在研究三个最突出目标中的每一个目标的衡量标准，其中两个是在大众调查中使用的新措施。首席调查员处于一个能够衡量的位置，如果有的话，选民如何对多党制比例代表制中政党面临的战略环境作出反应。这项调查将产生一个数据集，对其他对该主题感兴趣的学者将具有巨大的价值。这项研究有可能增强我们对这一主题的理解，并具有更广泛的社会价值，帮助我们理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.