IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v43y2011i6p1323-1340.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tactical Voting at the 2010 British General Election: Rational Behaviour in Local Contexts?

Author

Listed:
  • Ron Johnston

    (School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1SS, England)

  • Charles Pattie

    (Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, England)

Abstract

Tactical voting is an important element of British electoral behaviour, with approximately one sixth of all voters surveyed indicating that they voted tactically at the 2010 general election. Such voting for one's second preference party rather than one's first in order to prevent a less preferred party winning in a constituency is only rational in certain circumstances, reflecting the local context and electors' perceptions of the tactical situation there. Using 2010 British Election Study Internet survey data, this paper uses three separate definitions of tactical voting (two self-defined by the respondents, one inferred from a separate indication of their preferences) to test whether rational voting models successfully predict such behaviour. The findings are very clear and consistent with the theory, for all three groups.

Suggested Citation

  • Ron Johnston & Charles Pattie, 2011. "Tactical Voting at the 2010 British General Election: Rational Behaviour in Local Contexts?," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 43(6), pages 1323-1340, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:43:y:2011:i:6:p:1323-1340
    DOI: 10.1068/a43512
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a43512
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/a43512?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. André Blais & Marc André Bodet, 2006. "How Do Voters Form Expectations about the Parties' Chances of Winning the Election?," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 87(3), pages 477-493, September.
    2. Alvarez, R. Michael & Nagler, Jonathan, 2000. "A New Approach for Modelling Strategic Voting in Multiparty Elections," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 30(1), pages 57-75, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. St'ephane Dupraz & Daniel Muller & Lionel Page, 2013. "Tactical Voting and Voter's Sophistication in British Elections," QuBE Working Papers 011, QUT Business School.
    2. Granić, Đura-Georg, 2017. "The problem of the divided majority: Preference aggregation under uncertainty," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 21-38.
    3. Carla M. N. Caruana & R. Michael McGregor & Aaron A. Moore & Laura B. Stephenson, 2018. "Voting “Ford” or Against: Understanding Strategic Voting in the 2014 Toronto Municipal Election," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 99(1), pages 231-245, March.
    4. André Blais & Simon Labbé-St-Vincent & Jean-François Laslier & Nicolas Sauger & Karine van Der Straeten, 2008. "Vote choice in one round and two round elections," Working Papers hal-00335060, HAL.
    5. Hicken, Allen & Leider, Stephen & Ravanilla, Nico & Yang, Dean, 2018. "Temptation in vote-selling: Evidence from a field experiment in the Philippines," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 1-14.
    6. Fabian Gouret & Guillaume Hollard & Stéphane Rossignol, 2011. "An empirical analysis of valence in electoral competition," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 37(2), pages 309-340, July.
    7. Ján Palguta, 2011. "Voting Experiments: Measuring Vulnerability of Voting Procedures to Manipulation," Czech Economic Review, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, vol. 5(3), pages 324-345, November.
    8. Kei Kawai & Yasutora Watanabe, 2013. "Inferring Strategic Voting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 624-662, April.
    9. Carina Bischoff, 2013. "Electorally unstable by supply or demand?—an examination of the causes of electoral volatility in advanced industrial democracies," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 156(3), pages 537-561, September.
    10. Meffert, Michael F. & Gschwend, Thomas, 2007. "Strategic Voting under Proportional Representation and Coalition Governments: A Simulation and Laboratory Experiment," Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications 07-55, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim;Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim.
    11. Artabe, Alaitz & Gardeazabal, Javier, 2014. "Strategic Votes and Sincere Counterfactuals," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(2), pages 243-257, April.
    12. Stiers, Dieter & Dassonneville, Ruth, 2018. "Affect versus cognition: Wishful thinking on election day," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 199-215.
    13. Meffert, Michael F. & Gschwend, Thomas, 2007. "Voting for coalitions? : The role of coalition preferences and expectations in voting behavior," Papers 07-64, Sonderforschungsbreich 504.
    14. May Elsayyad & Shima'a Hanafy, 2012. "Voting Islamist or Voting secular? An empirical analysis of Voting Outcomes in “Arab Spring” Egypt," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201251, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    15. Aaron Edlin & Andrew Gelman & Noah Kaplan, 2007. "Voting as a Rational Choice: Why and How People Vote to Improve the Well-Being of Others," NBER Working Papers 13562, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Marc Guinjoan & Pablo Simón & Sandra Bermúdez & Ignacio Lago, 2014. "Expectations in Mass Elections: Back to the Future?," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1346-1359, December.
    17. Julio Rotemberg, 2009. "Attitude-dependent altruism, turnout and voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 140(1), pages 223-244, July.
    18. Karine Van der Straeten & Jean-François Laslier & Nicolas Sauger & André Blais, 2010. "Strategic, sincere, and heuristic voting under four election rules: an experimental study," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 35(3), pages 435-472, September.
    19. Giuseppe Attanasi & Luca CORAZZINI & Nikolaos GEORGANTZIS & Francesco PASSARELLI, 2009. "Risk Aversion, Over-Confidence and Private Information as determinants of Majority Thresholds," LERNA Working Papers 09.26.302, LERNA, University of Toulouse.
    20. Haldun Evrenk & Chien-Yuan Sher, 2015. "Social interactions in voting behavior: distinguishing between strategic voting and the bandwagon effect," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 162(3), pages 405-423, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:43:y:2011:i:6:p:1323-1340. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.