Expressive voting and identity: evidence from a case study of a group of U.S. voters

Abstract

The source of evidence on expressive voting has been experiments, in general conducted with students. In Why are Jews Liberals? Norman Podhoretz describes behavior that substantiates the hypothesis that people vote expressively to confirm identity. He does not use the terminology of expressive voting but his study is readily interpretable in an expressive-behavior context. Podhoretz describes liberal Jews in the U.S. as expressively voting contrary to self-interest to confirm allegiance to liberalism, which he terms a “new religion”. Traditional Jews do not require the identity of the new religion and vote in accord with their self-interest. I propose another interpretation of voting by liberal Jews in which expressive utility is not contrary to self-interest.