Understanding change and stability in party ideologies: Do parties respond to public opinion or to past election results?

British Journal of Political Science

Volumn 34, Issue 4, 2004, Pages 589-610

  Adams, James ^a   Clark, Michael ^a   Ezrow, Lawrence ^a   Glasgow, Garrett ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 7644220610     PISSN: 00071234     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0007123404000201     Document Type: Article

References (78)

1. Ian Budge, 'A New Theory of Party Competition: Uncertainty, Ideology and Policy Equilibria Viewed Comparatively and Temporally', British Journal of Political Science, 24 (1994), 443-67. We note that Jack Nagel, in 'Center-Party Strength and Major-Party Polarization in Britain' (presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, 2001), employs the CMP data to analyse the dynamics of parties' policy shifts in post-war Britain, while Adams presents theoretical arguments intended to illuminate the patterns of parties' policy dynamics in Britain, France and the United States (see James Adams, Party Competition and Responsible Party Government (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001)). Neither the Nagel nor the Adams study, however, explores the range of comparative data analysed by Budge in his twenty-nation survey.
2. Ian Budge, 'A New Theory of Party Competition: Uncertainty, Ideology and Policy Equilibria Viewed Comparatively and Temporally', British Journal of Political Science, 24 (1994), 443-67. We note that Jack Nagel, in 'Center-Party Strength and Major-Party Polarization in Britain' (presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, 2001), employs the CMP data to analyse the dynamics of parties' policy shifts in post-war Britain, while Adams presents theoretical arguments intended to illuminate the patterns of parties' policy dynamics in Britain, France and the United States (see James Adams, Party Competition and Responsible Party Government (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001)). Neither the Nagel nor the Adams study, however, explores the range of comparative data analysed by Budge in his twenty-nation survey.
3. Ian Budge, 'A New Theory of Party Competition: Uncertainty, Ideology and Policy Equilibria Viewed Comparatively and Temporally', British Journal of Political Science, 24 (1994), 443-67. We note that Jack Nagel, in 'Center-Party Strength and Major-Party Polarization in Britain' (presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, 2001), employs the CMP data to analyse the dynamics of parties' policy shifts in post-war Britain, while Adams presents theoretical arguments intended to illuminate the patterns of parties' policy dynamics in Britain, France and the United States (see James Adams, Party Competition and Responsible Party Government (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001)). Neither the Nagel nor the Adams study, however, explores the range of comparative data analysed by Budge in his twenty-nation survey.
4. On dynamic representation, see James Stimson, Michael MacKuen and Robert Erikson, 'Dynamic Representation', American Political Science Review, 89 (1995), 543-65, and also Robert Erikson, Michael MacKuen and James Stimson, The Macro Polity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). On the majoritarian model of representation, see G. Bingham Powell, Elections as Instruments of Democracy: Majoritarian and Proportional Visions (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000).
5. On dynamic representation, see James Stimson, Michael MacKuen and Robert Erikson, 'Dynamic Representation', American Political Science Review, 89 (1995), 543-65, and also Robert Erikson, Michael MacKuen and James Stimson, The Macro Polity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). On the majoritarian model of representation, see G. Bingham Powell, Elections as Instruments of Democracy: Majoritarian and Proportional Visions (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000).
6. On dynamic representation, see James Stimson, Michael MacKuen and Robert Erikson, 'Dynamic Representation', American Political Science Review, 89 (1995), 543-65, and also Robert Erikson, Michael MacKuen and James Stimson, The Macro Polity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). On the majoritarian model of representation, see G. Bingham Powell, Elections as Instruments of Democracy: Majoritarian and Proportional Visions (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000).
7. See Jay Dow, 'A Comparative Spatial Analysis of Majoritarian and Proportional Systems', Electoral Studies, 9 (2001), 109-25; David Austen-Smith and Jeffrey Banks, 'Elections, Coalitions, and Legislative Outcomes', American Political Science Review, 82 (1988), 405-22.
8. See Jay Dow, 'A Comparative Spatial Analysis of Majoritarian and Proportional Systems', Electoral Studies, 9 (2001), 109-25; David Austen-Smith and Jeffrey Banks, 'Elections, Coalitions, and Legislative Outcomes', American Political Science Review, 82 (1988), 405-22.
9. See Gary Cox, 'Centripetal and Centrifugal Incentives in Electoral Systems', American Journal of Political Science, 34 (1990), 905-35; Samuel Merrill III and James Adams, 'Centripetal Incentives in Multicandidate Elections', Journal of Theoretical Politics, 14 (2002), 275-300.
10. See Gary Cox, 'Centripetal and Centrifugal Incentives in Electoral Systems', American Journal of Political Science, 34 (1990), 905-35; Samuel Merrill III and James Adams, 'Centripetal Incentives in Multicandidate Elections', Journal of Theoretical Politics, 14 (2002), 275-300.
11. John Aldrich, 'A Downsian Spatial Model with Party Activists', American Political Science Review, 77 (1983), 974-90; Norman Schofield and Itai Sened, The Myth of the Political Centre: Modeling the Interaction of Parties, Activists, and Voters' (unpublished, Washington University St Louis); Donald Wittman, 'Candidate Motivation: A Synthesis of Alternatives', American Political Science Review, 77 (1983), 142-57.
12. John Aldrich, 'A Downsian Spatial Model with Party Activists', American Political Science Review, 77 (1983), 974-90; Norman Schofield and Itai Sened, The Myth of the Political Centre: Modeling the Interaction of Parties, Activists, and Voters' (unpublished, Washington University St Louis); Donald Wittman, 'Candidate Motivation: A Synthesis of Alternatives', American Political Science Review, 77 (1983), 142-57.
13. John Aldrich, 'A Downsian Spatial Model with Party Activists', American Political Science Review, 77 (1983), 974-90; Norman Schofield and Itai Sened, The Myth of the Political Centre: Modeling the Interaction of Parties, Activists, and Voters' (unpublished, Washington University St Louis); Donald Wittman, 'Candidate Motivation: A Synthesis of Alternatives', American Political Science Review, 77 (1983), 142-57.
14. In models of two-party elections, the prediction is that vote-seeking or office-seeking parties will locate at the median voter's position or, for probabilistic voting models with quadratic policy losses, at the voter mean; see James Enelow and Melvin Hinich, The Spatial Theory of Voting (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). Matters are more complicated in multiparty analyses; however, multiparty spatial models with probabilistic voting find that parties are likely to be drawn towards the mean voter position, while analyses based on deterministic policy voting suggest that parties will still orient themselves relative to the voter distribution, so that shifts in public opinion should motivate shifts in parties' positions. On multiparty probabilistic voting models, see Tse-Min Lin, James Enelow and Han Dorussen, 'Equilibrium in Multicandidate Probabilistic Spatial Voting', Public Choice, 98 (1999), 59-82; on deterministic multiparty models, see Cox, 'Centripetal and Centrifugal Incentives in Electoral Systems.'
15. In models of two-party elections, the prediction is that vote-seeking or office-seeking parties will locate at the median voter's position or, for probabilistic voting models with quadratic policy losses, at the voter mean; see James Enelow and Melvin Hinich, The Spatial Theory of Voting (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). Matters are more complicated in multiparty analyses; however, multiparty spatial models with probabilistic voting find that parties are likely to be drawn towards the mean voter position, while analyses based on deterministic policy voting suggest that parties will still orient themselves relative to the voter distribution, so that shifts in public opinion should motivate shifts in parties' positions. On multiparty probabilistic voting models, see Tse-Min Lin, James Enelow and Han Dorussen, 'Equilibrium in Multicandidate Probabilistic Spatial Voting', Public Choice, 98 (1999), 59-82; on deterministic multiparty models, see Cox, 'Centripetal and Centrifugal Incentives in Electoral Systems.'
16. In models of two-party elections, the prediction is that vote-seeking or office-seeking parties will locate at the median voter's position or, for probabilistic voting models with quadratic policy losses, at the voter mean; see James Enelow and Melvin Hinich, The Spatial Theory of Voting (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). Matters are more complicated in multiparty analyses; however, multiparty spatial models with probabilistic voting find that parties are likely to be drawn towards the mean voter position, while analyses based on deterministic policy voting suggest that parties will still orient themselves relative to the voter distribution, so that shifts in public opinion should motivate shifts in parties' positions. On multiparty probabilistic voting models, see Tse-Min Lin, James Enelow and Han Dorussen, 'Equilibrium in Multicandidate Probabilistic Spatial Voting', Public Choice, 98 (1999), 59-82; on deterministic multiparty models, see Cox, 'Centripetal and Centrifugal Incentives in Electoral Systems.'
17. Stimson, MacKuen and Erikson, 'Dynamic Representation'.
18. See Timothy Groseclose, 'A Model of Candidate Location When One Candidate Has a Valence Advantage', American Journal of Political Science, 45 (2001), 862-86.
19. John Huber, 'Parliamentary Rules and Party Behavior during Minority Government in France', in Wolfgang Muller and Kaare Strøm, eds, Policy, Office, or Votes? How Political Parties in Western Europe Make Hard Decisions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 258-78; Roberto D'Alimonte, 'Party Behavior in a Polarized System: The Italian Communist Party and the Historic Compromise', in Muller and Strøm, eds, Policy, Office, or Votes?
20. John Huber, 'Parliamentary Rules and Party Behavior during Minority Government in France', in Wolfgang Muller and Kaare Strøm, eds, Policy, Office, or Votes? How Political Parties in Western Europe Make Hard Decisions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 258-78; Roberto D'Alimonte, 'Party Behavior in a Polarized System: The Italian Communist Party and the Historic Compromise', in Muller and Strøm, eds, Policy, Office, or Votes?
21. Wolfgang Muller, 'Decision for Opposition: The Austrian Socialist Party's Abandonment of Government Participation in 1966', in Muller and Strøm, eds, Policy, Office, or Votes? pp. 172-91.
22. Philip Converse and Roy Pierce, Political Representation in France (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986).
23. Michael Lewis-Beck, Economics and Elections (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988); R. Michael Alvarez, Jonathan Nagler and Shaun Bowler, 'Issues, Economics, and the Dynamics of Multiparty Elections: The 1997 British General Election', American Political Science Review, 42 (2000), 55-96. We note that empirical research suggesting that voters have little knowledge of parties' policy programmes, and indeed that some citizens may lack meaningful attitudes on important dimensions of political controversy, is also relevant here. For evidence on these issues, see Converse and Pierce, Political Representation in France, and John Zaller, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
24. Michael Lewis-Beck, Economics and Elections (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988); R. Michael Alvarez, Jonathan Nagler and Shaun Bowler, 'Issues, Economics, and the Dynamics of Multiparty Elections: The 1997 British General Election', American Political Science Review, 42 (2000), 55-96. We note that empirical research suggesting that voters have little knowledge of parties' policy programmes, and indeed that some citizens may lack meaningful attitudes on important dimensions of political controversy, is also relevant here. For evidence on these issues, see Converse and Pierce, Political Representation in France, and John Zaller, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
25. Michael Lewis-Beck, Economics and Elections (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988); R. Michael Alvarez, Jonathan Nagler and Shaun Bowler, 'Issues, Economics, and the Dynamics of Multiparty Elections: The 1997 British General Election', American Political Science Review, 42 (2000), 55-96. We note that empirical research suggesting that voters have little knowledge of parties' policy programmes, and indeed that some citizens may lack meaningful attitudes on important dimensions of political controversy, is also relevant here. For evidence on these issues, see Converse and Pierce, Political Representation in France, and John Zaller, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
26. Michael Lewis-Beck, Economics and Elections (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988); R. Michael Alvarez, Jonathan Nagler and Shaun Bowler, 'Issues, Economics, and the Dynamics of Multiparty Elections: The 1997 British General Election', American Political Science Review, 42 (2000), 55-96. We note that empirical research suggesting that voters have little knowledge of parties' policy programmes, and indeed that some citizens may lack meaningful attitudes on important dimensions of political controversy, is also relevant here. For evidence on these issues, see Converse and Pierce, Political Representation in France, and John Zaller, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
27. Budge, 'A New Theory of Party Competition'.
28. We note that our references to left and right parties locate these parties relative to the voter distribution.
29. With respect to centrist parties, our logic is that because it is difficult for centrist politicians to determine whether their policies are slightly to the right or to the left of the median voter, it is also difficult for these politicians to determine whether moderate shifts in public opinion move the overall voter distribution nearer to or further away from the party's policies.
30. Budge, 'A New Theory of Party Competition.'
31. We note that Budge's argument is also consistent with the concept of 'boundedly rational' parties, which update their policy positions in response to polling information or past election results. See Richard McKelvey and Peter Ordeshook, 'Elections with Limited Information: A Fulfilled Expectations Model Using Contemporaneous Polling Data', Journal of Economic Theory, 15 (1985), 55-85; see also Kenneth Kollman, John Miller and Scott Page, 'Adaptive Parties in Spatial Elections', American Political Science Review, 86 (1992), 929-37.
32. We note that Budge's argument is also consistent with the concept of 'boundedly rational' parties, which update their policy positions in response to polling information or past election results. See Richard McKelvey and Peter Ordeshook, 'Elections with Limited Information: A Fulfilled Expectations Model Using Contemporaneous Polling Data', Journal of Economic Theory, 15 (1985), 55-85; see also Kenneth Kollman, John Miller and Scott Page, 'Adaptive Parties in Spatial Elections', American Political Science Review, 86 (1992), 929-37.
33. Specifically, Budge concludes that of the five possible party decision rules he enumerates, the past election model provides the best fit for about twenty of the seventy parties included in his empirical analyses. For these twenty parties, the past election results model correctly predicts the direction of the party's policy shift (left or right) 70 per cent of the time (see Table 3 in Budge, 'A New Theory of Party Competition').
34. Nagel, 'Center-Party Strength and Major-Party Polarization in Britain'.
35. Readers interested in a comprehensive summary of the CMP's coding procedures are referred to Appendix 2 in Ian Budge, Hans-Dieter Klingemann, Andrea Volkens, Judith Bara and Eric Tanenbaum, Mapping Policy Preferences: Estimates for Parties, Electors, and Governments 1945-1998 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
36. Derek Hearl, 'Checking the Party Policy Estimates: Reliability', in Budge et al., Mapping Policy Preferences, pp. 111-26; Michael McDonald and Sylvia Mendes, 'Checking the Party Policy Estimates: Convergent Validity', in Budge et al., Mapping Policy Preferences, pp. 127-42. Below we report additional analyses based on an alternative method for coding party programmes developed by Gabel and Huber; see Matthew Gabel and John Huber, 'Putting Parties in their Place: Inferring Party Left-Right Ideological Positions from Party Manifesto Data', American Journal of Political Science, 44 (2000), 94-103.
37. Derek Hearl, 'Checking the Party Policy Estimates: Reliability', in Budge et al., Mapping Policy Preferences, pp. 111-26; Michael McDonald and Sylvia Mendes, 'Checking the Party Policy Estimates: Convergent Validity', in Budge et al., Mapping Policy Preferences, pp. 127-42. Below we report additional analyses based on an alternative method for coding party programmes developed by Gabel and Huber; see Matthew Gabel and John Huber, 'Putting Parties in their Place: Inferring Party Left-Right Ideological Positions from Party Manifesto Data', American Journal of Political Science, 44 (2000), 94-103.
38. Derek Hearl, 'Checking the Party Policy Estimates: Reliability', in Budge et al., Mapping Policy Preferences, pp. 111-26; Michael McDonald and Sylvia Mendes, 'Checking the Party Policy Estimates: Convergent Validity', in Budge et al., Mapping Policy Preferences, pp. 127-42. Below we report additional analyses based on an alternative method for coding party programmes developed by Gabel and Huber; see Matthew Gabel and John Huber, 'Putting Parties in their Place: Inferring Party Left-Right Ideological Positions from Party Manifesto Data', American Journal of Political Science, 44 (2000), 94-103.
39. We note that Kim and Fording have developed an alternative comparative method for inferring the median voter's ideological position in an election year, which relies on election results and parties' estimated ideological positions (as coded by the CMP), rather than on voter surveys; see Heemin Kim and Richard Fording, 'Voter Ideology in Western Democracies, 1946-1989', European Journal of Political Research, 33 (1998), 73-97. While promising, the Kim-Fording coding procedure is not ideal for our purposes since it uses party ideologies to infer voters' ideological positions. Since we are interested in the effect of voters' ideological positions upon party ideologies, use of the Kim-Fording measure in our analysis would involve using party ideologies as both the dependent variable and a component of the independent variable.
40. John Huber, 'Values and Partisanship in Left-Right Orientations: Measuring Ideology', European Journal of Political Research, 17 (1989), 599-621.
41. Although we omit these three countries due to concerns about cross-national comparability, statistical analyses that included data from these countries support substantive conclusions that are identical to the ones we report below.
42. J equals 1 for right-wing parties and 0 for all other parties. Our codings of the party designations as left-wing or right-wing parties - which we discuss below - are presented in the notes to the Appendix.
43. Specifically, parties that the CMP classified as members of the Communist, Social Democratic and Green party families were classified as left-wing parties in our analyses, while parties the CMP classified as belonging to the Conservative, Christian and Nationalist families were classified as right-wing parties. We classified parties belonging to the CMP's Liberal and Agrarian family classifications as centrist parties. We relied on the CMP classification scheme because this provided independent criteria for assigning ideological designations to political parties, so that our theoretical expectations would not contaminate our party classifications. We note that we performed additional analyses, based upon our subjective codings of the parties' left-right statuses, which supported substantive conclusions that were identical to the ones we report below.
44. A possible objection to this line of reasoning is that the finding of statistically significant associations between shifts in public opinion and shifts in party ideologies need not necessarily indicate that parties respond to public opinion, but may be due to two alternative processes: one in which public opinion responds to shifts in party ideologies, and another in which parties and the public both respond to some third variable that we do not account for in our model (we thank Jesse Russell for pointing out this latter possibility). This objection is valid. However we shall argue below that these alternative processes cannot account for the statistical patterns that we uncover in our empirical analyses.
45. We also estimated the parameters of an alternative specification for which the past election results variable was defined as the change in the party's vote share at election t - 1, multiplied by a dummy variable which equalled 1 if the party had shifted to the left at election t - 1, and 0 if the party had shifted to the right at election t - 1. These analyses supported substantive conclusions that were identical to the ones we report below.
46. Budge, 'A New Theory of Party Competition'.
47. Adams, Party Competition and Responsible Party Government.
48. Gordon Burt, 'Party Policy: Decision Rule or Chance? A Note on Budge's New Spatial Theory of Party Competition', British Journal of Political Science, 27 (1998), 647-58. Specifically, Burt argues that his 'random ideology model' will generate patterns in which parties alternate the direction of their ideological shifts two-thirds of the time. To see this, note that if one randomly selects three successive party ideologies from the same random probability distribution, and one labels these ideologies as the right-most ideology R, the left-most ideology L, and the centre ideology C, four of the six possible orderings of these ideological positions produce a pattern of policy alternation: LAC, CLR, CRL, RLC. Only two orderings (LCR and RCL) produce apattem in which the parties shift in the same direction in two successive elections.
49. To see this, consider the situation in which a party's actual ideology does not vary over time, and in which its observed ideology, as coded by the CMP, is randomly selected from a distribution centred on its true ideology but with a standard deviation that represents measurement error. Provided that the measurement errors are uncorrelated across elections, this model is observationally equivalent to Hurt's 'random ideologies' model.
50. As a check on this hypothesis, we estimated the parameters of a specification identical to that given in Equation 1 above, except that it omitted parties' past ideological shifts. The parameter estimates for the independent variables were similar to those we estimated for a fully-specified model (given by Equation 2 below) that incorporates parties' past ideological shifts, but as expected the standard errors associated with the parameter estimates were substantially higher for Equation 1 than they were for Equation 2.
51. Huber, 'Values and Partisanship in Left-Right Orientations'; Hearl, 'Checking the Party Policy Estimates: Reliability'; McDonald and Mendes, 'Checking the Party Policy Estimates: Convergent Validity'.
52. Huber, 'Values and Partisanship in Left-Right Orientations'; Hearl, 'Checking the Party Policy Estimates: Reliability'; McDonald and Mendes, 'Checking the Party Policy Estimates: Convergent Validity'.
53. Huber, 'Values and Partisanship in Left-Right Orientations'; Hearl, 'Checking the Party Policy Estimates: Reliability'; McDonald and Mendes, 'Checking the Party Policy Estimates: Convergent Validity'.
54. The difference between the estimated values for the harmful public opinion shift coefficient and the benign public opinion shift coefficient is statistically significant at the 0.05 level.
55. An anonymous referee argues that a comparison of the estimated coefficients for the party's ideological shift (t - 1) variable (-0.49) and the party's ideological shift (t - 2) variable (-0.20) does not support Burt's random ideologies model or the measurement error hypothesis, since both models imply that political parties' two previous policy shifts should have similar relationships to their policy shifts in the current election. (The difference between the coefficient estimates for these two variables is statistically significant at the 0.05 level.) This finding, which lends support to the alternation models of Budge and Adams in preference to Burt's random ideologies model, is one that we plan to explore in future research. Here we forgo advancing a firm conclusion on this point, because we believe the resolution of this important puzzle requires a more searching evaluation of the statistical assumptions underlying our analysis.
56. In addition to the results reported in Table 2, we estimated the parameters for several additional pooled data specifications, including specifications that controlled for changes in the national unemployment and inflation rates, specifications that controlled for differences in the variance of the CMP data across countries, re-estimates of the basic model on a country-by-country basis and omitting one country at a time, and a logit specification in which parties' ideological shifts between elections were coded as dichotomous variables which reflected whether the parties had shifted to the left or the right. All of these analyses supported substantive conclusions that are identical to the ones we report below. The tables for these alternative analyses are available from the authors upon request.
57. 36,125 = 0.48, p = 0.99), indicating that party-specific effects are not biasing our results.
58. Gabel and Huber, 'Putting Parties in their Place.'
59. We thank Matt Gabel and John Huber for making this data available to us. Because the Gabel-Huber codings stop in 1992, the number of cases in this analysis (n = 109) is smaller than the number of cases in the regression analyses based upon the CMP codings (n = 167).
60. We thank Paul Warwick and Nolan McCarthy for drawing our attention to this point.
61. Cox, 'Centripetal and Centrifugal Incentives in Electoral Systems'; Merrill and Adams, 'Centripetal Incentives in Multicandidate Elections.'
62. Cox, 'Centripetal and Centrifugal Incentives in Electoral Systems'; Merrill and Adams, 'Centripetal Incentives in Multicandidate Elections.'
63. Note that the voter dispersion effects variable is constructed so that if the estimated coefficient associated with this variable is positive, this will indicate that left-wing and right-wing parties tend to moderate their ideological positions when the voter distribution grows more compact, and that these parties tend to shift further away from the centre when the voter distribution grows more dispersed.
64. Stimson et al., 'Dynamic Representation'; Erikson et al., The Macro Polity.
65. Stimson et al., 'Dynamic Representation'; Erikson et al., The Macro Polity.
66. See Hearl, 'Checking the Party Policy Estimates: Reliability'; McDonald and Mendes, 'Checking the Party Policy Estimates: Convergent Validity'.
67. See Hearl, 'Checking the Party Policy Estimates: Reliability'; McDonald and Mendes, 'Checking the Party Policy Estimates: Convergent Validity'.
68. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, 'Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decisions under Risk', Econometrica, 47 (1979), 313-27. We thank an anonymous referee for drawing our attention to the link between the Kahnneman-Tversky results and our findings on the dynamics of disadvantaged parties.
69. Stimson et al., 'Dynamic Representation', provide empirical support for this proposition in the context of American politics, while Ezrow presents support for this hypothesis in the context of West European elections (see Lawrence Ezrow, 'Are Moderate Parties Rewarded in Multiparty Systems? A Pooled Analysis of Western European Elections, 1984-1998', European Journal of Political Research, forthcoming.
70. Stimson et al., 'Dynamic Representation', provide empirical support for this proposition in the context of American politics, while Ezrow presents support for this hypothesis in the context of West European elections (see Lawrence Ezrow, 'Are Moderate Parties Rewarded in Multiparty Systems? A Pooled Analysis of Western European Elections, 1984-1998', European Journal of Political Research, forthcoming.
71. In particular, theoretical work on spatial models of elections posits that shifts in parties' policy positions may affect the following election-related variables: party activists' and special interests' willingness to provide campaign resources (see Gary Miller and Norman Schofield, 'Activists and Partisan Realignment in the United States', American Political Science Review, 97 (2003), 245-60); rival political elites' decisions about whether to contest the upcoming election (see Thomas Palfrey, 'Spatial Equilibrium with Entry', Review of Economic Studies, 51 (1984), 139-56); voters' degrees of certainty about the party's policy positions (see Steven Callander and Simon Wilkie, 'Candidate Flexibility' (unpublished, Northwestern University, 2003). In addition, empirical work by Alvarez and Nagler, and by Stokes, suggests that parties' policy shifts may alter voters' decision rules, by changing the electoral salience of policy distance vis-à-vis alternative considerations, such as the state of the economy (see R. Michael Alvarez and Jonathan Nagler, 'Party System Compactness: Consequences and Measures' (unpublished, Calfornia Institute of Technology, 2002)); Susan Stokes, Mandates and Democracy: Neoliberalism by Surprise in Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
72. In particular, theoretical work on spatial models of elections posits that shifts in parties' policy positions may affect the following election-related variables: party activists' and special interests' willingness to provide campaign resources (see Gary Miller and Norman Schofield, 'Activists and Partisan Realignment in the United States', American Political Science Review, 97 (2003), 245-60); rival political elites' decisions about whether to contest the upcoming election (see Thomas Palfrey, 'Spatial Equilibrium with Entry', Review of Economic Studies, 51 (1984), 139-56); voters' degrees of certainty about the party's policy positions (see Steven Callander and Simon Wilkie, 'Candidate Flexibility' (unpublished, Northwestern University, 2003). In addition, empirical work by Alvarez and Nagler, and by Stokes, suggests that parties' policy shifts may alter voters' decision rules, by changing the electoral salience of policy distance vis-à-vis alternative considerations, such as the state of the economy (see R. Michael Alvarez and Jonathan Nagler, 'Party System Compactness: Consequences and Measures' (unpublished, Calfornia Institute of Technology, 2002)); Susan Stokes, Mandates and Democracy: Neoliberalism by Surprise in Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
73. In particular, theoretical work on spatial models of elections posits that shifts in parties' policy positions may affect the following election-related variables: party activists' and special interests' willingness to provide campaign resources (see Gary Miller and Norman Schofield, 'Activists and Partisan Realignment in the United States', American Political Science Review, 97 (2003), 245-60); rival political elites' decisions about whether to contest the upcoming election (see Thomas Palfrey, 'Spatial Equilibrium with Entry', Review of Economic Studies, 51 (1984), 139-56); voters' degrees of certainty about the party's policy positions (see Steven Callander and Simon Wilkie, 'Candidate Flexibility' (unpublished, Northwestern University, 2003). In addition, empirical work by Alvarez and Nagler, and by Stokes, suggests that parties' policy shifts may alter voters' decision rules, by changing the electoral salience of policy distance vis-à-vis alternative considerations, such as the state of the economy (see R. Michael Alvarez and Jonathan Nagler, 'Party System Compactness: Consequences and Measures' (unpublished, Calfornia Institute of Technology, 2002)); Susan Stokes, Mandates and Democracy: Neoliberalism by Surprise in Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
74. In particular, theoretical work on spatial models of elections posits that shifts in parties' policy positions may affect the following election-related variables: party activists' and special interests' willingness to provide campaign resources (see Gary Miller and Norman Schofield, 'Activists and Partisan Realignment in the United States', American Political Science Review, 97 (2003), 245-60); rival political elites' decisions about whether to contest the upcoming election (see Thomas Palfrey, 'Spatial Equilibrium with Entry', Review of Economic Studies, 51 (1984), 139-56); voters' degrees of certainty about the party's policy positions (see Steven Callander and Simon Wilkie, 'Candidate Flexibility' (unpublished, Northwestern University, 2003). In addition, empirical work by Alvarez and Nagler, and by Stokes, suggests that parties' policy shifts may alter voters' decision rules, by changing the electoral salience of policy distance vis-à-vis alternative considerations, such as the state of the economy (see R. Michael Alvarez and Jonathan Nagler, 'Party System Compactness: Consequences and Measures' (unpublished, Calfornia Institute of Technology, 2002)); Susan Stokes, Mandates and Democracy: Neoliberalism by Surprise in Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
75. In particular, theoretical work on spatial models of elections posits that shifts in parties' policy positions may affect the following election-related variables: party activists' and special interests' willingness to provide campaign resources (see Gary Miller and Norman Schofield, 'Activists and Partisan Realignment in the United States', American Political Science Review, 97 (2003), 245-60); rival political elites' decisions about whether to contest the upcoming election (see Thomas Palfrey, 'Spatial Equilibrium with Entry', Review of Economic Studies, 51 (1984), 139-56); voters' degrees of certainty about the party's policy positions (see Steven Callander and Simon Wilkie, 'Candidate Flexibility' (unpublished, Northwestern University, 2003). In addition, empirical work by Alvarez and Nagler, and by Stokes, suggests that parties' policy shifts may alter voters' decision rules, by changing the electoral salience of policy distance vis-à-vis alternative considerations, such as the state of the economy (see R. Michael Alvarez and Jonathan Nagler, 'Party System Compactness: Consequences and Measures' (unpublished, Calfornia Institute of Technology, 2002)); Susan Stokes, Mandates and Democracy: Neoliberalism by Surprise in Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
76. Oleg Smirnov and James Fowler, 'Moving with the Mandate: The Role of Margins of Victory, Uncertainty, Electorate Polarization, and Party Motivations in Dynamic Political Competition' (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, 2003).
77. We note that the Smirnov-Fowler argument is couched in terms of two-party elections. However, it seems plausible that a similar dynamic obtains in multiparty elections, especially those which feature competition between two proto-coalitions which are identifiable to voters in advance of the election, as is the case in many West European democracies.
78. In addition, several readers have suggested that we investigate the hypothesis that parties respond to the ideological shifts of rival parties. While this hypothesis strikes us as promising - especially given that this assumption underlies virtually all spatial models of party competition - it is difficult to evaluate empirically given the limitations of our data. Specifically, to the extent that parties' ideologies are influenced by exogenous factors such as public opinion and past election results, and by the endogenous factor of rival parties' ideologies, we are forced to estimate a recursive model which can only be identified provided that we make strong assumptions that are difficult to justify empirically.