Anthony Downs Ch. 8

The Statics and Dynamics of Party Ideology

Learning Objectives

• Evaluate how people develop political opinions and how this impacts their political behavior.

• Understand the decision making process for why people vote as they do and how this changes over time.

Party Movement

• When do parties change ideologies

• When do the diverge?

• When do they resemble each other

Where To Build a Bar in Central Texas?

Here… in Bastrop

Or Here?

6th Street

Why Do you See These two across the Street From Each Other?

Why Does This, Appear next to This?

Why Do We Have?

THESE STRATEGIES APPLY TO POLITICS

Lets Apply this to Ideology

• Here is a distribution with 0 representing policy liberalism, and 100 representing policy conservativism

• A and B represent political parties

Where Parties Should Go in A Normal Distribution

They Move To the Center

Why go to the Center

• You Cant leapfrog the other party

• More voters

• At what point do you stop moving to the Center?

When do you stop?

The Problem of Being Too Moderate

• A Third Party could grab your flank

• Too many of your people stay home

STAYING PUT

What About A Bimodal Distribution?

Party Polarization

The Tea Party

One Hump is often Bigger 2010

In 2008 it was the other way

MULTI PARTY SYSTEMS

Polygamy

A polymodal System

A Polymodal System

• In PR systems, 1 party for Each hump

• How might this differ in a Single Member District System?

In Germany

Party Movement in Multiparty Systems

• Stay Put!• Distinguish yourself from your enemies

How our Parties Deal with the Humps

• Social and Economic Conservatives (within the GOP)

• The Many Humps within the Democratic Party

HOW MANY PARTIESNew and Old

How Many Parties in Majority Elections

• Duverger’s Law

– Mechanical Effect

– Psychological Effect

How Many in a Two Round System

• If No candidate gets 50%+1, we have a runoff

• This system encourages multiple candidates/parties as well as coalitions

What about in Texas?

The Kinds of Candidates

• Those who are there to win– Perry– KBH

• Those that are there to influence– Medina– The rest

• This system encourages populist and extremist candidates

Voting in the First Round

• Try to get your preferred candidate into second place or Get them 50%

• Do not worry about switching candidates

The Second Round

• Round 1 winners must compromise to get the supporters of the losing candidates in round two

• This favors candidates who are situated at the political middle

• This hurts intransigent candidates

Rational Voting in this system

• Round 1 with your heart

• Round 2 with your head

How many parties in a PR system

• As many parties as humps exist

• Depends on the threshold

NEW PARTIES

Getting New Parties

• Existing parties cant jump over each other

• New Parties come from– Between the gap– On the fringe

What New parties Want to Do

Win elections Threaten Existing Parties

How can Third Parties Win?

A Shift In Franchise…. The electorate changes!

Splitting the Vote

Ambiguity

• You can try to accomplish everything• It increases your appeal• It makes it harder for the voter to be rational!

Why?