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Tactical Voting: Concepts, Measurement and Findings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Anthony Heath  and
Geoffrey Evans
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Extract

At the end of this series of comments, rejoinders and second thoughts on tactical voting it may not be entirely clear what is actually in dispute. The aim of this Note, therefore, is simply to take stock and to try to elucidate the points on which there is agreement and disagreement.

Type
Notes and Comments
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , October 1994 , pp. 557 - 561
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

1 See Niemi, Richard G., Whitten, Guy and Franklin, Mark N., ‘Constituency Characteristics, Individual Characteristics and Tactical Voting in the 1987 British General Election’, British Journal of Political Science, 22 (1992), 229–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Evans, Geoffrey and Heath, Anthony, ‘A Tactical Error in the Analysis of Tactical Voting: A Response to Niemi, Whitten and Franklin’, British Journal of Political Science, 23 (1993), 131–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Niemi, Richard G., Whitten, Guy and Franklin, Mark N., ‘People who Live in Glass Houses: A Response to Evans and Heath's Critique of our Note on Tactical Voting’, British Journal of Political Science, 23 (1993), 549–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Franklin, Mark N., Niemi, Richard G. and Whitten, Guy, ‘The Two Faces of Tactical Voting’, this issue, pp. 549–57.Google Scholar

2 See Cain, B., ‘Strategic Voting in Britain’ American Journal of Political Science, 22 (1978), 638–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Evans, Geoffrey, ‘Tactical Voting and Labour's Prospects’, in Heath, Anthony, Jowell, Roger and Curtice, Lohn, eds, Labour's Last Chance? The 1992 Election and Beyond (Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1994), pp. 65–84Google Scholar. Note that we also distinguish between constituency-level tactical voting and national-level tactical voting, and it is important to keep the two concepts distinct. See Clifford, Peter and Heath, Anthony, ‘The Election Campaign’Google Scholar, in Heath, , Jowell, and Curtice, , eds, Labour's Last Chance?, pp. 7–23.Google Scholar

3 Franklin, et al. , ‘The Two Faces of Tactical Voting’, p. 556.Google Scholar

4 Franklin, et al. , ‘The Two Faces of Tactical Voting’, p. 552.Google Scholar

5 Heath, Anthony, Jowell, Roger and Curtice, John, How Britain Votes (Oxford: Pergamon, 1985) pp. 8–10.Google Scholar

6 Niemi et al. made the same mistake in their previous Note. They wrote: ‘some of the “Main reason” tactical voters – whose motivation we have accepted at face value – claim to have voted tactically even though their most preferred party finished in first or second place in the constituency … Because the party they preferred has no distance from contention by virtue of the fact that it is in first or second place, such voters cannot be behaving tactically in the accepted sense of the term’ (Niemi, et al. , ‘People who Live in Glass Houses’, p. 552Google Scholar). This of course is nonsense. The usual sense of the term tactical voting does not endow voters with perfect foresight. It is voters' prior perception of the tactical situation, not the eventual outcome, that is crucial. The eventual constituency outcome should be regarded as, at best, an imperfect indicator of prior perceptions.

7 See Evans, , ‘Tactical Voting and Labour's Prospects’, p. 68.Google Scholar

8 Franklin, et al. , ‘The Two Faces of Tactical Voting’, p. 552Google Scholar. Franklin and his colleagues take us to task for the missing data, as they appear to feel that the questionnaire should have asked every respondent which party they really preferred. In fact the questionnaire contains a considerable amount of information which might be relevant to their task; in addition to the standard items on party identification and second choice, every respondent was asked how strongly they were in favour of each of the main parties.

9 Heath, et al. , Understanding Political Change: The British Voter 1964–1987 (Oxford: Pergamon, 1991), chap. 4Google Scholar; Evans, , ‘Tactical Voting and Labour's Prospects’Google Scholar. The first two findings directly confirm the major predictions which Cain made in his rational choice theory of strategic voting. See Cain, , ‘Strategic Voting in Britain’, p. 642, fn. 9.Google Scholar

10 Franklin, et al. , ‘The Two Faces of Tactical Voting’, p. 554.Google Scholar