Abstract
Introduction While the theoretical results presented in Chapter 11 are suggestive, they rest upon simplified voting models that omit several factors that influence realworld voters' decisions. These include influences that vary across voters, such as party identification and sociodemographic characteristics, as well as voter-specific random disturbance terms that render voters' choices probabilistic from the candidates' perspectives. In this regard, simulations based upon election survey data offer a possible bridge between our theoretical results and empirical applications. Here we explore policy-seeking candidates' strategies, using survey data from the two-candidate 1988 American presidential election and from the second round of the 1988 French presidential election, which was also a two-candidate contest.We also report applications to the 1997 British general election, which featured a three-party contest. The 1988 U.S. and French presidential elections provide an appropriate testing ground for spatial models of policy-seeking candidates, since the presidents of both countries have broad constitutional powers to influence government policy (see Pierce 1995; Safran 1998). As in our theoretical analyses, we first explore these issues using the assumption that the candidates had full information. Then, in the next section, we extend our analysis to incomplete information scenarios, and we explore candidate strategies when uncertainty centers on the electoral effects of valence issues and, alternatively, when uncertainty revolves around positional issues. The Contexts of the 1988 American and French Presidential Elections Both the 1988 U.S. presidential election and the second round of the 1988 French presidential election pitted a candidate from a traditionally rightwing party against an opponent from a traditionally left-wing party.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.