Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T16:45:11.618Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Categorization Theory of Spatial Voting: How the Center Divides the Political Space

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 January 2016

Jørgen Bølstad  and
Elias Dinas
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article presents a categorization theory of spatial voting, which postulates that voters perceive political stances through coarse classifications. Because voters think in terms of categories defined by the ideological center, their behavior deviates from standard models of utility maximization along ideological continua. Their preferences are characterized by discontinuities, rewarding parties on their side of the ideological space more than existing spatial models would predict. While this study concurs with prior studies suggesting that voters tend to use a proximity rule, it argues that this rule mainly serves to distinguish among parties of the same side. Overall, the results suggest that voters’ party evaluations are characterized by a nontrivial identity component, generating in-group biases not captured by the existing spatial models of voting.

Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , October 2017 , pp. 829 - 850
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Center for Comparative and International Studies, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (email: [email protected]); Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford (email: [email protected]). The authors would like to thank James P. Cross, Spyros Kosmidis, Jonathan Nagler, Trajche Panov, Pedro Riera, Piero Stanig, Alex Trechsel, Pablo Fernandez-Vazquez, Till Weber, Thomas Winzen, the members of their panels at the 2nd Annual General Conference of the European Political Science Association, Berlin, 21–23 June 2012, and the Annual Elections, Public Opinion and Parties Conference at the University of Exeter, 9–11 September 2011, as well the attendees of relevant sessions of the ETH Colloquium on European Politics and the EUI Colloquium on Political Behavior. Replication codes are available at http://thedata.harvard.edu/dvn/dv/BJPolS and online appendices are available at http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1017/S0007123415000393. All data used in this article are publicly available.

References

Adams, James, Bishin, Benjamin G., and Dow, Jay K.. 2004. Representation in Congressional Campaigns: Evidence for Discounting/Directional Voting in U.S. Senate Elections. The Journal of Politics 66 (2):348–373.Google Scholar
Adams, James F., Merrill, Samuel III, and Grofman, Bernard. 2005. A Unified Theory of Party Competition: A Cross-National Analysis Integrating Spatial and Behavioral Factors. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
American National Election Studies (ANES). 2010. Time Series Cumulative Datafile [dataset]. Stanford University and the University of Michigan [producers and distributors]. Available from http://www.electionstudies.org, accessed 12 August 2012.Google Scholar
Bakker, Ryan, Vries, Catherine De, Edwards, Erica, Hooghe, Liesbet, Jolly, Seth, Marks, Gary, Polk, Jonathan, Rovny, Jan, Steenbergen, Marco, and Vachudova, Milada Anna. 2015. Measuring Party Positions in Europe: The Chapel Hill Expert Survey Trend File, 1999–2010. Party Politics 21 (1):143–152.Google Scholar
Brewer, Marilynn B. 1979. In-Group Bias in the Minimal Intergroup Situation: A Cognitive-Motivational Analysis. Psychological Bulletin 86 (2):307–324.Google Scholar
Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren E., and Stokes, Donald E.. 1960. The American Voter. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Cho, Sungdai, and Endersby, James W.. 2003. Issues, the Spatial Theory of Voting, and British General Elections: A Comparison of Proximity and Directional Models. Public Choice 114:275–293.Google Scholar
Claassen, Ryan L. 2007. Ideology and Evaluation in an Experimental Setting. Political Research Quarterly 60 (2):263–273.Google Scholar
Clarke, Harold D., Sanders, David, Stewart, Marianne C., and Whiteley, Paul. 2004. Political Choice in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Converse, Philip E., and Markus, Gregory B.. 1979. A Dynamic Simultaneous Equation Model of Electoral Choice. American Political Science Review 73 (4):1055–1070.Google Scholar
Dinas, Elias, and Gemenis, Kostas. 2010. Evaluating Competing Methods of Measuring Parties’ Ideological Positions with Manifesto Data. Party Politics 16:427–450.Google Scholar
Dow, Jay K. 1998. Directional and Proximity Models of Voter Choice in Recent US Presidential Elections. Public Choice 96 (3):259–270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Edelman, Gerald M. 1992. Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
EES. 2011. European Parliament Election Study 2009, Voter Study, Advance Release, 23/06/2011. Available from http://www.piredeu.eu, accessed 25 July 2011.Google Scholar
Eiser, J. Richard, and Stroebe, Wolfgang. 1972. Categorization and Social Judgment. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Erikson, Robert S., MacKuen, Michael B., and Stimson, James A.. 2002. The Macro Polity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fiorina, Morris P. 1992. Divided Government. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Goldstone, Robert L. 1995. Effects of Categorization on Color Perception. Psychological Science 6 (5):298–304.Google Scholar
Green, Donald P., Palmquist, Bradley, and Schickler, Eric. 2002. Partisan Hearts and Minds: Political Parties and the Social Identities of Voters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Greene, Steven. 1999. Understanding Party Identification: A Social Identity Approach. Political Psychology 20 (2):393–403.Google Scholar
Grofman, Bernard. 1985. The Neglected Role of the Status Quo in Models of Issue Voting. The Journal of Politics 47 (1):230–237.Google Scholar
Grynaviski, Jeffrey D., and Corrigan, Bryce E.. 2006. Specification Issues in Proximity Models of Candidate Evaluation (with Issue Importance). Political Analysis 14 (4):393–420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huart, Johanne, Corneille, Olivier, and Becquart, Emilie. 2005. Face-Based Categorization, Context-Based Categorization, and Distortions in the Recollection of Gender Ambiguous Faces. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 41 (6):598–608.Google Scholar
Huddy, Leonie. 2001. From Social to Political Identity: A Critical Examination of Social Identity Theory. Political Psychology 22 (1):127–156.Google Scholar
Iversen, Torben. 1994a. The Logics of Electoral Politics. Comparative Political Studies 27 (2):155–189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iversen, Torben. 1994b. Political Leadership and Representation in West European Democracies: A Test of Three Models of Voting. American Journal of Political Science 38 (1):45–74.Google Scholar
Johnston, Richard, Fournier, Patrick, and Richard, Jenkins. 2000. Party Location and Party Support: Unpacking Competing Models. Journal of Politics 62 (4):1145–1160.Google Scholar
Kedar, Orit. 2005. When Moderate Voters Prefer Extreme Parties: Policy Balancing in Parliamentary Elections. The American Political Science Review 99 (2):185–199.Google Scholar
Keil, Frank C. 2003. Folkscience: Coarse Interpretations of a Complex Reality. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 7 (8):368–373.Google Scholar
Kelly, George A. 1955. The Psychology of Personal Constructs Vol. 1. New York: Norton Press.Google Scholar
Kroh, Martin. 2007. Measuring Left–Right Political Orientation: The Choice of Response Format. Public Opinion Quarterly 71 (2):204–220.Google Scholar
Krueger, Joachim, and Rothbart, Myron. 1990. Contrast and Accentuation Effects in Category Learning. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 59 (4):651–663.Google Scholar
Krueger, Joachim, and Clement, Russell W.. 1994. Memory-Based Judgments About Multiple Categories: A Revision and Extension of Tajfel’s Accentuation Theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67 (1):35–47.Google Scholar
Lacy, Dean, and Paolino, Philip. 2010. Testing Proximity Versus Directional Voting Using Experiments. Electoral Studies 29 (3):460–471.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, Jeffrey B., and King, Gary. 1999. No Evidence on Directional vs. Proximity Voting. Political Analysis 8 (1):21–33.Google Scholar
Linhart, Eric, and Shikano, Susumu. 2009. A Basic Tool Set for a Generalized Directional Model. Public Choice 140:85–104.Google Scholar
Lupu, Noam. 2013. Party Brands and Partisanship: Theory with Evidence from a Survey Experiment in Argentina. American Journal of Political Science 57 (1):49–64.Google Scholar
Macdonald, Stuart Elaine, and Rabinowitz, George. 1998. Solving the Paradox of Nonconvergence: Valence, Position, and Direction in Democratic Politics. Electoral Studies 17 (3):281–300.Google Scholar
Macdonald, Stuart Elaine, Rabinowitz, George, and Brasher, Holly. 2003. Policy Issues and Electoral Democracy. In Electoral Democracy, edited by Michael B. MacKuen and George Rabinowitz, 172–199. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Macdonald, Stuart Elaine, Rabinowitz, George, and Listhaug, Ola. 2007. Simulating Models of Issue Voting. Political Analysis 15 (4):406–427.Google Scholar
Malt, Barbara, Ross, Brian, and Murphy, Gregory. 1995. Predicting Features for Members of Natural Categories When Categorization is Uncertain. Journal of Experimental Psychology 21:646–661.Google Scholar
Manzini, Paola, and Mariotti, Marco. 2012. Categorize then Choose: Boundedly Rational Choice and Welfare. Journal of the European Economic Association 10 (5):1141–1165.Google Scholar
Matthews, Steven A. 1979. A Simple Direction Model of Electoral Competition. Public Choice 34:141–156.Google Scholar
Mermillod, Martial, Guyader, Nathalie, and Chauvin, Alan. 2005. The Coarse-to-Fine Hypothesis Revisited: Evidence from Neuro-Computational Modeling. Brain and Cognition 57 (2):151–157.Google Scholar
Merrill, Samuel III. 1995. Discriminating Between the Directional and Proximity Spatial Models of Electoral Competition. Electoral Studies 14 (3):273–287.Google Scholar
Merrill, Samuel III, and Grofman, Bernard. 1999. A Unified Theory of Voting: Directional and Proximity Spatial Models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mullainathan, Sendhil. 2002. Thinking Through Categories. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Mullainathan, Sendhil, Schwartzstein, Joshua, and Shleifer, Andrei. 2008. Coarse Thinking and Persuasion. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 123 (2):577–619.Google Scholar
Murphy, Gregory, and Brian, Ross. 1994. Predictions from Uncertain Categorizations. Cognitive Psychology 27:148–193.Google Scholar
Pardos-Prado, Sergi, and Dinas, Elias. 2010. Systemic Polarisation and Spatial Voting. European Journal of Political Research 49 (6):759–786.Google Scholar
Pop-Eleches, Grigore. 2007. Historical Legacies and Post-Communist Regime Change. Journal of Politics 69 (4):908–926.Google Scholar
Rabinowitz, George. 1978. On the Nature of Political Issues: Insights from a Spatial Analysis. American Journal of Political Science 22 (4):793–817.Google Scholar
Rabinowitz, George, and Macdonald, Stuart Elaine. 1989. A Directional Theory of Issue Voting. The American Political Science Review 83 (1):93–121.Google Scholar
Rico, Guillem, and Jennings, Kent M.. 2014. The Transmission of Left-Right Orientations Within the Family: The Case of Catalonia, unpublished manuscript, Barcelona, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.Google Scholar
Rosch, Eleanor. 1978. Principles of Categorization. In Cognition and Categorization, edited by Eleanor Rosch and Barbara B. Lloyd, 27–48. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Sears, David O., and Funk, Carolyn L.. 1999. Evidence of the Long-Term Persistence of Adults’ Political Predispositions. Journal of Politics 61 (1):1–28.Google Scholar
Sniderman, Paul M., and Stiglitz, Edward H.. 2012. The Reputational Premium: A Theory of Party Identification and Policy Reasoning. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Spencer, Steven J., Fein, Steven, Wolfe, Connie T., Fong, Christina, and Duinn, Meghan A.. 1998. Automatic Activation of Stereotypes: The Role of Self-Image Threat. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24 (11):1139–1152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stangor, Charles, Lynch, Laure, Duan, Changming, and Glas, Beth. 1992. Categorization of Individuals on the Basis of Multiple Social Features. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 62 (2):207–218.Google Scholar
Tajfel, Henri. 1982. Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Annual Review of Psychology 33 (1):1–39.Google Scholar
Tajfel, Henri, and Wilkes, Alan L.. 1963. Classification and Quantitative Judgement. British Journal of Psychology 54 (2):101–114.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Taylor, Shelley E., Fiske, Susan T., Etcoff, Nancy L., and Ruderman, Audrey J.. 1978. Categorical and Contextual Bases of Person Memory and Stereotyping. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36 (7):778–793.Google Scholar
Tomz, Michael, and Van Houweling, Robert P.. 2008. Candidate Positioning and Voter Choice. American Political Science Review 102 (3):303–318.Google Scholar
Turner, John C., Hogg, Michael A., Oakes, Penelope J., Reicher, Stephen D., and Wetherell, Margaret S.. 1987. Rediscovering the Social Group: A Self-Categorization Theory. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
van der Brug, Wooter. 2001. Perceptions, Opinions and Party Preferences in the Face of a Real World Event: Chernobyl as a Natural Experiment in Political Psychology. Journal of Theoretical Politics 13 (1):53–80.Google Scholar
van der Eijk, Cees, van der Brug, Wouter, Kroh, Martin, and Franklin, Mark. 2006. Rethinking the Dependent Variable in Voting Behavior: On the Measurement and Analysis of Electoral Utilities. Electoral Studies 25 (3):424–447.Google Scholar
Voci, Alberto. 2006. Relevance of Social Categories, Depersonalization and Group Processes: Two Field Tests of Self-Categorization Theory. European Journal of Social Psychology 36 (1):73–90.Google Scholar
Westholm, Anders. 1997. Distance Versus Direction: The Illusory Defeat of the Proximity Theory of Electoral Choice. American Political Science Review 91 (4):865–883.Google Scholar
Whitefield, Stephen. 2002. Political Cleavages and Post-Communist Politics. Annual Review of Political Science 5 (1):181–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zechmeister, Elizabeth. 2006. What’s Left and Who’s Right? A Q-Method Study of Individual and Contextual Influences on the Meaning of Ideological Labels. Political Behavior 28 (2):151–173.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Bølstad and Dinas supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Bølstad and Dinas supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 271.2 KB