The theory of strategic voting has been tested in experiments for elections in single member districts with three candidates or parties. It is unclear whether it can explain strategic voting behavior in a fairly common type of political system, multi-party systems with proportional representation, minimum vote thresholds, and coalition governments. In this paper, we develop a (non-formal) strategic voting game and show in a simulation that the model produces election scenarios and outcomes with desirable characteristics. We then test the decision-theoretic model in a laboratory experiment. Participants with a purely instrumental (financial) motivation voted in a series of 25 independent elections. The availability of polls and coalition signals by parties was manipulated. The results show that voters are frequently able to make optimal or strategic vote decisions, but that voters also rely on simple decision heuristics and are highly susceptible to coalition signals by parties.
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Paper provided by Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim & Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim in its series Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications with number
07-55.
Length: 36 pages Date of creation: 30 Jul 2007 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:xrs:sfbmaa:07-55
Note: Financial support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, SFB 504, at the University of Mannheim, is gratefully acknowledged. Contact details of provider: Postal: D-68131 Mannheim Phone: (49) (0) 621-292-2547 Fax: (49) (0) 621-292-5594 Email: Web page: http://www.sfb504.uni-mannheim.de/ More information through EDIRC
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
James Buchanan & Yong Yoon, 2006.
"All voting is strategic,"
Public Choice,
Springer, vol. 129(1), pages 159-167, October.
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