A Theory of Moderating Elections

在行政和立法机构都是直选的国家，分裂的政府正在成为常态，而不是例外。例如，在美国，共和党似乎牢牢控制着总统宝座，而民主党似乎在国会拥有优势。在这个项目中，研究人员将这种现象解释为一个过程的结果，即温和派选民带来了权力平衡，确保了温和的政策结果。调查人员首先假定两个政党的目标不同。也就是说，两党在执政时奉行不同的政策，因为他们追求不同选民的利益。然而，最终的政策结果不仅取决于哪个政党担任总统，还取决于国会的组成。温和派选民，即倾向于两党最喜欢的政策之间的政策的选民，有两个机会来“缓和”总统。在总统选举年，一些选民可能会投票，共和党人竞选总统，然后通过投票给民主党国会候选人来“平衡”。这解释了通常观察到的分裂。票选。其次，在中期国会选举中，可能会出现一些额外的温和。在这些选举中，总统的身份没有任何不确定性。这使得与总统竞选结果不确定的总统选举年相比，“温和”变得更容易。因此，中期可能会出现一些额外的缓和。这解释了第二个被广泛观察到的现象：中期周期。也就是说，与总统选举年举行的前几次国会选举相比，执掌白宫的政党几乎总是在中期选举中失去选票和席位。研究人员开发了这一过程的模型，并考虑了一个具体的政策问题：通胀/失业之间的权衡。研究人员就经济状况和选举结果之间的相关性提出了几个可检验的命题。使用1950-1984年期间国会选举的总体投票数据，研究人员评估了该模型在多大程度上预测在任影响和经济状况方面的总体国会选举结果。

Divided governments are becoming the norm, rather than the exception in countries where the executive and the legislature are both directly elected. In the United States, for instance, the Republican Party appears to have a solid grip on the Presidency, while the Democratic Party appears to have an advantage in Congress. In this project the investigators explain this phenomenon as the result of a process where moderate voters bring about a balance of power that insures a moderate policy outcome. The investigators start from the presumption that the two political parties have different objectives. That is, when in office, the two parties follow different policies because they pursue the interests of different constituencies. However, the final policy outcome is not only a function of which party is holding the Presidency, but also of the composition of Congress. Moderate voters, that is voters who prefer policies in between the policies most preferred by the two parties, have two opportunities to"moderate" the President. In Presidential election years some voters may vote, Republican for President and then "balance" by voting for a Democratic candidate for Congress. This explains the common observation of split.ticket voting. Second, in mid.term Congressional elections some additional moderation can take place. In these elections there is no uncertainty about the identity of the President. This makes "moderation" easier relative to Presidential election years when there is uncertainty about the outcome of the Presidential race. Thus, some additional moderation can take place in mid-term. This explains a second widely observed phenomenon: the mid-term cycle. That is, the party holding the White House almost always loses votes and seats in mid-term elections relative to the preceding Congressional elections held in Presidential election years. The researchers have developed a model of this process and consider a specific policy issue: the inflation/unemployment tradeoff. The researchers generate several testable propositions of the correlations between economic conditions and electoral outcomes. Using aggregate voting data for Congressional elections for the period 1950-1984 the researchers assess the extent to which the model predicts aggregate Congressional election outcomes in terms of incumbency effects and state of the economy.