IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/easeco/v43y2017i4d10.1057_eej.2015.37.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

It’s My Party and I’ll Vote How I Want to: Experimental Evidence of Directional Voting in Two-Candidate Elections

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas Knight

    (Department of Economics, University of Florida)

  • Fan Li

    (China Center for Special Economic Zone Research, Shenzhen University)

  • Lindsey Woodworth

    (Department of Economics, University of California)

Abstract

The competing theories of proximity and directional voting have long been used to model voting behavior. Empirically evaluating these theories, however, requires knowledge of voters’ utilities, which are inherently unobserved. Empiricists have generally dealt with this by using self-reports of utility. Yet, self-reports are likely biased, leaving experimental predictions at odds with real-world election outcomes. We improve upon this method by constructing a discrete choice model which is able to measure the likelihood of any one voter exhibiting proximity voting behavior as opposed to directional voting behavior, without needing to know voters’ utilities. We subsequently conduct a voting experiment with over 1,800 participants to estimate the parameters of the model. Our results suggest that, among voters whose expected behavior differs across the two theories, there is an approximately even split between voting behaviors, and the probability of exhibiting proximity voting behavior decreases by roughly 10 percentage points for each step away from the midpoint of a (−10 to +10) political spectrum. Our results are robust across two measures of preferences and four candidate pairings. The outcomes of our experiment are also consistent with the results of the 2012 Presidential Election, which took place the day after our experiment closed.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas Knight & Fan Li & Lindsey Woodworth, 2017. "It’s My Party and I’ll Vote How I Want to: Experimental Evidence of Directional Voting in Two-Candidate Elections," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 43(4), pages 660-676, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:easeco:v:43:y:2017:i:4:d:10.1057_eej.2015.37
    DOI: 10.1057/eej.2015.37
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/eej.2015.37
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/eej.2015.37?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lewis, Jeffrey B. & King, Gary, 1999. "No Evidence on Directional vs. Proximity Voting," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(1), pages 21-33, January.
    2. Merrill, Samuel, III, 1993. "Voting Behavior under the Directional Spatial Model of Electoral Competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 77(4), pages 739-756, December.
    3. Tomz, Michael & Van Houweling, Robert P., 2009. "The Electoral Implications of Candidate Ambiguity," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 103(1), pages 83-98, February.
    4. Westholm, Anders, 1997. "Distance versus Direction: The Illusory Defeat of the Proximity Theory of Electoral Choice," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 91(4), pages 865-883, December.
    5. Dow, Jay K, 1998. "Directional and Proximity Models of Voter Choice in Recent US Presidential Elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 96(3-4), pages 259-270, September.
    6. Cho, Sungdai & Endersby, James W, 2003. "Issues, the Spatial Theory of Voting, and British General Elections: A Comparison of Proximity and Directional Models," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 114(3-4), pages 275-293, March.
    7. Rabinowitz, George & Macdonald, Stuart Elaine, 1989. "A Directional Theory of Issue Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(1), pages 93-121, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Isaac Duerr & Thomas Knight & Lindsey Woodworth, 2019. "Evidence on the Effect of Political Platform Transparency on Partisan Voting," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 45(3), pages 331-349, June.

    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. Isaac Duerr & Thomas Knight & Lindsey Woodworth, 2019. "Evidence on the Effect of Political Platform Transparency on Partisan Voting," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 45(3), pages 331-349, June.
    2. Samuel Merrill III & Bernard Grofman, 1997. "Symposium. The Directional Theory of Issue Voting: II," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 9(1), pages 25-48, January.
    3. Wagner Antonio Kamakura, 2016. "Using Voter-choice Modeling to Plan Final Campaigns in Runoff Elections," RAC - Revista de Administração Contemporânea (Journal of Contemporary Administration), ANPAD - Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Administração, vol. 20(6), pages 753-776.
    4. 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.
    5. Eiselt, H.A. & Marianov, Vladimir, 2020. "Maximizing political vote in multiple districts," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    6. Eric Linhart & Susumu Shikano, 2009. "A basic tool set for a generalized directional model," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 140(1), pages 85-104, July.
    7. Zoltán Fazekas & Levente Littvay, 2012. "Choosing sides: The genetics of why we go with the loudest," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 24(3), pages 389-408, July.
    8. Roy Pierce, 1997. "Symposium. The Directional Theory of Issue Voting: III," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 9(1), pages 61-74, January.
    9. Joseph Gershtenson, 2009. "Candidates and Competition: Variability in Ideological Voting in U.S. Senate Elections," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 90(1), pages 117-133, March.
    10. Bellani, Luna & Scervini, Francesco, 2015. "Heterogeneous preferences and in-kind redistribution: Theory and evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 196-219.
    11. Paul V. Warwick, 2004. "Proximity, Directionality, and the Riddle of Relative Party Extremeness," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 16(3), pages 263-287, July.
    12. Peter Grand & Guido Tiemann, 2013. "Projection effects and specification bias in spatial models of European Parliament elections," European Union Politics, , vol. 14(4), pages 497-521, December.
    13. Francisco Martínez-Mora & M. Socorro Puy, 2009. "Off-the-peak preferences over government size," Working Papers 2009-9, Universidad de Málaga, Department of Economic Theory, Málaga Economic Theory Research Center.
    14. Nichole Szembrot, 2017. "Are voters cursed when politicians conceal policy preferences?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 173(1), pages 25-41, October.
    15. Bogomolnaia, Anna & Laslier, Jean-Francois, 2007. "Euclidean preferences," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 87-98, February.
    16. Mikael Gilljam, 1997. "Symposium. The Directional Theory of Issue Voting: I," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 9(1), pages 5-12, January.
    17. Freixas, Josep & Parker, Cameron, 2015. "Manipulation in games with multiple levels of output," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 144-151.
    18. Michal Tóth & Roman Chytilek, 2018. "Fast, frugal and correct? An experimental study on the influence of time scarcity and quantity of information on the voter decision making process," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 177(1), pages 67-86, October.
    19. Zakharov, Alexei & Fantazzini, Dean, 2009. "Economic Factors in a Model of Voting: The Case of The Netherlands, Great Britain, and Israel," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 14(2), pages 57-73.
    20. Rory McDonald & Cheng Gao, 2019. "Pivoting Isn’t Enough? Managing Strategic Reorientation in New Ventures," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(6), pages 1289-1318, November.

    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:pal:easeco:v:43:y:2017:i:4:d:10.1057_eej.2015.37. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ .

    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.