The Statics and Dynamics of Party Ideology 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
New and Old How Many parties
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?