Voting Behaviour Models Voting Depends Specifically on Red Pants

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Voting Behaviour ModelsVoting Depends
Specifically on Red Pants

• Voting Context
• (Nature of election, electoral system can affect
  voting, voters may choose to protest, abstain or
  vote tactically)
• Dominant Ideology
• (Conspiracy theory, voters choice is manipulated
  by those in power using media)
• Social Structures
• (Mainly class, but also age, gender. Race,
  religion etc.)
• Rational Choice
• (voters weigh up parties manifestos,
  track-record and recent events)
• Party ID
• (voters aligned to a certain party)
• William Millars General Model
• (attempts to combine the above factors)

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Examples

• Pre 1970s era of alignment class party (SS,
  PID)
• Post 1970s era of dealignment (volatility)
  Rational choice e.g. Fall in Tory vote after
  Black Wed
• Northern Ireland Religion (SS) Womens
  Coalition (Gender)
• America Race, Blacks vote Democrat (SS)
• 2003 Election Lab voters going to Lib Dem in
  protest over Iraq (VC)
• 1997 Election Sun backs Labour (DI)
• Spain 2004 Election happened immediately after
  train bombings and the govt were removed because
  of the way they handled the affair (VC/RC)

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Dont Forget to Mention

• Shock Events (VC / RC)
• Media (DI)
• Charisma of leaders (RC)

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Voting Systems

• Dont Forget to mention
• Turnout
• Wasted Votes
• Likelihood of coalition govt
• Spoiled votes
• Tactical voting

• Evaluate using
• Simplicity
• Voter Input
• Proportionality / Fairness
• Stability
• Constituency Representation

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Examples

• UK, USA use FPTP Stable, successful. But is
  this down top the electoral system? The dubious
  200 election of George Bush almost undermined the
  whole US political system!
• NI FPTP ultimately unstable as nationalists
  protested against the unfairness NICRM,
  Bloody Sunday 1972, IRA formed 1968.
• NI STV (GFA) unstable? Was the electoral system
  the reason the GFA failed? May have been part of
  it as the threahold for MLAs was so low they
  could get elected entirely from own community, so
  there was no need to try and appeal to the other
  side resulting in many hardliners being
  elected (DUP SF now largest parties in
  assembly).
• France 2nd Ballot Few people turned-out for
  the first ballot in last presidential election
  and the national-front candidate Le Penn made it
  through!

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Examples

• ITALY used a proportional system after WW2
  which created weak coalition governments. Italian
  politics became very corrupt as parties did deals
  with each other to get into government, and few
  parties remained in power long enough to fully
  implement their policies. Italy stabilised when
  it switched to a hybrid system.
• Weimar Germany Used a proportional system
  resulting in weak coalition governments who were
  unable to deal with crises such as the Wall
  Street crash and ultimately lost the support of
  the people allowing the Nazis to rise.
• Israel Uses the Party List system which allows
  small fundamentalist Jewish Parties into
  coalitions governments which have prevented
  agreement in the middle-east.
• Ireland (STV) Netherlands (List) Sweden (List)
• All stable successful democracies using
  proportional systems and often have coalition
  governments.

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Dont Forget to Mention

• No perfect electoral system depends on time,
  history, size, development etc.
• Elections can be improved/modified without
  changing the system (electronic voting,
  compulsory voting etc.)
• Elections must be free, fair, secret ballot,
  universal suffrage etc.
• Some groups may boycott elections e.g. Sunni
  Muslims in Iraq.

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Referendums

• Disadvantages
• Whats popular isnt always right!
• May result in tyranny of the majority over
  minorities
• Can be used by politicians to avoid tricky issues
• Wording of question can be used to manipulate
  result only certain options may be made
  available.
• Can over simply complicated issues
• Governments will rarely agree to a referendum
  unless they can be fairly sure they will win
  why have we not had a referendum on the euro yet?
• Referendums can be very open to influence from
  the media.
• A large portion of society might be disgruntled
  if they lose by a small majority. For example in
  the Welsh Assembly vote 49.7 people voted no.

• Advantages
• Allows direct participation (direct democracy)
  there was 80 turnout for the GFA vote.
• Enables govt to deal with a tricky issue
• Provides a clear answer
• Act as check on the power of govt
• Campaigns inform the public
• Technology now allows referendums to be carried
  out more often

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Examples

• In 2005 European Nations began to hold
  referendums on the European constitution which
  was agreed between the leaders. The results have
  so far indicated that the leaders had become out
  of touch with their people and the NO votes in
  France and the Netherlands provided a wake-up
  call to governments across Europe.
• GFA, the referendum reduced this complicated
  issue to a simple yes or no. In reality most
  people supported some areas of the agreement but
  were opposed to others.
• Switzerland/Some US States The people can
  initiate their own referendums on any issue
  through an initiative (petition) this gives them
  a great degree of direct democracy.
• 1973 Border Poll, was boycotted by nationalists.
• UK devolution referendums set-up the assemblies
  in Scot, Wales, London but no NE England where it
  was rejected!
• In Ireland issues such as divorce and abortion
  have been settled in referendums
• Australia has held a referendum on becoming a
  republic
• Denmark rejected the Euro in a referendum