Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Vote Choice and Representation in Challenging Electoral Environments

政治学博士论文研究：具有挑战性的选举环境中的投票选择和代表

• 批准号: 1123236
• 负责人: Scott Desposato
• 金额: $ 1.2万
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-09-01 至 2013-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1123236&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

Hundreds of millions of voters around the world select representatives in systems which allow them to choose from dozens or hundreds of candidates and dozens of political parties. Work in political science, psychology, and consumer choice highlights the pernicious effects of large choice sets on our ability to make satisfactory choices. This study seeks to expetnd the findings to the electoral arena and develop and test a new theory about the trade-off between representation and the ability of voters to select representatives. Scholars and designers of electoral systems often seek to improve the representativeness of the pool of candidates by increasing the number of seats in each district, lowering barriers to entry, and creating institutions that encourage personalistic campaigns. However, if these institutions succeed at increasing the number of options with which voters are presented, they may also have perverse effects on the ability of voters to make satisfactory choices, the quality of representation and accountability, and democratic stability. Excessively large choice sets may prevent voters from making satisfactory choices, decrease their feelings of political efficacy, and lead them to become dissatisfied with democratic institutions. These problems can be compounded in systems where political parties, an important source of information, are weak and less effective signals of candidate quality.This project will test for a relationship between the size of voters' choice sets and their ability and willingness to make satisfactory choices, their satisfaction with their choices, and their support for democracy. It will also test for the ability of political parties to mitigate some of the effects of large choice sets, even in democratic systems with weaker political parties and personalistic campaigns.This theroey about vote choice will be tested using a series of experiments conducted in two Brazilian cities: Sao Paulo and Recife. These experiments will improve on existent work on correct voting by expeanding it beyond U.S. elections and testing for a causal relationship between electoral institutions and the ability of voters to make satisfactory choices.Better understanding the relationship between the choices with which voters are presented in elections and the ability of voters to make satisfactory choices can have profound implications for the quality of representation and the stability of new democracies. Electoral institutions, political campaigns, and media coverage of elections may need to be better designed to provide voters with a more manageable choice set. Furthermore, the results from this project will shed more light on the value of investing in strengthening political parties as a means of improving representation and voters' poltiical efficacy.

全世界数以亿计的选民选择代表的制度允许他们从几十个或几百个候选人和几十个政党中进行选择。政治学、心理学和消费者选择的研究都强调了大量选择对我们做出满意选择的能力的有害影响。本研究试图将研究结果应用于选举领域，并发展和测试一个关于代表权与选民选择代表能力之间权衡关系的新理论。选举制度的学者和设计者经常寻求通过增加每个选区的席位数量、降低进入门槛和创建鼓励个人主义竞选的机构来提高候选人的代表性。然而，如果这些机构成功地增加了向选民提供的选择的数量，它们也可能对选民作出令人满意的选择的能力、代表和问责制的质量以及民主的稳定产生不利影响。过多的选择集可能会阻碍选民做出满意的选择，降低他们对政治效能的感觉，并导致他们对民主制度不满意。这些问题在作为重要信息来源的政党是候选人质量的微弱和不太有效的信号的制度中可能会更加复杂。这个项目将测试选民选择集的大小与他们做出令人满意的选择的能力和意愿、他们对选择的满意度以及他们对民主的支持之间的关系。它还将考验政党减轻大量选择集的一些影响的能力，即使在政党较弱和个人主义竞选的民主制度中也是如此。这个关于投票选择的理论将通过在巴西的两个城市：圣保罗和累西腓进行的一系列实验来检验。这些实验将改进现有的关于正确投票的工作，将其扩展到美国选举之外，并测试选举制度与选民做出令人满意的选择的能力之间的因果关系。更好地了解选民在选举中所作的选择与选民作出满意选择的能力之间的关系，可以对代表制的质量和新民主国家的稳定产生深远的影响。选举机构、政治运动和媒体对选举的报道可能需要更好地设计，以便为选民提供更易于管理的选择。此外，该项目的结果将更清楚地说明投资加强政党作为提高代表性和选民政治效能的手段的价值。