Party Competition and Responsible Party Government

Party Competition and Responsible Party Government

Party Competition and Responsible Party Government A Theory of Spatial Competition Based upon Insights from Behavioral Voting Research James Adams Ann Arbor

Copyright by the University of Michigan 2001 All rights reserved Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America Printed on acid-free paper 2004 2003 2002 2001 4 3 2 1 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher. A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Adams, James, 1962 Party competition and responsible party government : a theory of spatial competition based upon insights from behavioral voting research / James Adams. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-472-11201-5 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 0-472-08767-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Political parties. 2. Democracy. 3. Voting research. I. Title. JF2051.A33 2001 324.2 01 dc21 2001034778

To Dorothy Adams

Contents List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgments ix xiii xv Part I. Party Competition under the Basic Partisan Spatial Model 1. Political Representation and Responsible Party Government 3 2. Policy Stability, Policy Divergence, and the Pressure for Responsible Parties in a Three-Party System: The Case of Britain 25 3. Party Policy Trajectories in the Absence of Long-Term Equilibrium: Temporal Aspects of Party Competition in Three-Party Elections 51 4. Party Competition in Postwar France under the Partisan Vote Model 79 Part II. Extensions of the Basic Partisan Vote Model 5. Party Competition in Postwar France, Part II: Party Policies since the Mid-1980s 101 6. Extensions to Probabilistic Voting 121 7. Extensions to Two-Party Competition in American Elections: A Sketch of a Partisan Spatial Model with Variable Voter Turnout 145 8. Directions for Future Research 166

viii Contents Appendixes Appendix A. Description of the Simulation Procedures 171 Appendix B. On Using Election Surveys to Analyze Parties Cross-Time Policy Trajectories 172 Appendix C. Party Policy Strategies and Equilibrium Results for a Generalized Multivariate Probabilistic Voting Model 174 Appendix D. Proof of Theorem 7.1 184 Notes 191 References 217 Index 229

Figures 1.1. Three-party spatial competition for the standard Downsian model 7 1.2. Mean locations of parties and voters along a Left-Right economic issue dimension 12 2.1. A model of the voting decision 30 2.2. Mean positions of party identifiers and independents in Britain, France, and Norway 32 2.3. Spatial competition under the partisan vote model: The pressure for policy divergence when partisanship correlates with Left-Right position 34 2.4. Equilibrium configuration 37 2.5. Equilibrium configuration when a new voting constituency enters the electorate 39 2.6. Equilibrium configuration in which parties C and R receive equal vote shares 39 2.7. Alternative party configuration in which party R is motivated to leapfrog party L 41 2.8. Equilibrium analysis for party positioning on nationalization of industry, 1987 British general election 44 2.9. Voter opinions and parties equilibrium positions on nationalization of industry for varying degrees of partisan voting 47 3.1. Left-Right trajectories of the three major British postwar parties as coded by the Manifesto Research Group 54 3.2. An illustration of strategic incentives that can lead to oscillating parties under the biased voter model 58 3.3. Parties policy trajectories for the voter distribution given in figure 3.2A 60 3.4. Illustration of why leapfrogging typically involves contiguous parties 62 3.5. Illustration of the instability of policy configurations in which parties locate far from their partisans 63

x Figures 3.6. Analysis of British parties policy trajectories for the voter distribution derived from the 1992 British General Election Study 67 3.7. Spatial mapping of British parties policy trajectories for simulations based on a stable distribution of respondents from the 1992 British General Election Study 69 3.8. Spatial mapping of British parties policy trajectories for simulations based on evolving distributions of respondents from the 1992 British General Election Study 72 3.9. Spatial mapping of British parties policy trajectories for simulations based on evolving distributions of respondents from the 1987 British General Election Study 75 4.1. Examples of policy equilibrium and the pressures for policy representation for four-party spatial competition in France 82 4.2. Left-Right trajectories of the major parties during the French Fifth Republic as coded by the Manifesto Research Group 86 4.3. Spatial mapping of French parties policy trajectories for simulations on a stable voter distribution 88 4.4. Spatial mapping of French parties policy trajectories for simulations based on an evolving, increasingly partisan, voter distribution 92 4.5. Voters Left-Right positions and mean party positions over the course of simulated policy trajectories 95 5.1. French parties policy trajectories for alternative models of partisan voting 106 5.2. Parties policy trajectories for two-dimensional spatial competition under the basic partisan vote model 112 5.3. Parties policy trajectories for two-dimensional spatial competition under the coalition partisan vote model 117 6.1. Spatial competition involving independent voters who choose probabilistically 126 6.2. Party C s expected vote as a function of Left-Right position, with parties L and R located at the voter mean 5.0 128 6.3. Voter i s probability of voting for party L as a function of L s Left-Right position 130 6.4. Analysis of party L s policy strategies when voters choose according to the partisan probabilistic vote model 133 6.5. Analysis of party L s policy strategy for an alternative voter distribution when voters choose according to the PPV model 134 6.6. British parties expected votes with rival parties located at their equilibrium positions 138

Figures xi 6.7. French parties expected votes with rival parties located at their equilibrium positions for four-party competition 141 7.1. MRG s coding of the Left-Right trajectories of American political parties, 1956 88 148 7.2. Two-party competition under the partisan spatial model 149 7.3. Voter decisions under the partisan voting model for varying levels of voter turnout 152 7.4. Two-party competition under the partisan turnout vote model 154 7.5. Parties expected votes, with the rival party located at its equilibrium position, for the partisan turnout vote model 156 7.6. Distributions of respondents liberal-conservative self-placements in the 1992 and 1996 American National Election Studies 158 7.7. Simulated equilibrium for the partisan turnout model for the voter distribution derived from the 1996 ANES 160 7.8. Spatial mappings of the parties policy trajectories for simulations based on the 1996 ANES voter distribution 161 C.1. Party competition when voter biases correlate with policy positions 181 C.2. Policy equilibria for varying values of s 182 D.1. Spatial analysis of party strategies for the scenario x* d r 185

Tables 1.1. Experts mean party placements for eight Western European democracies 10 1.2. Incidence of leapfrogging and crossing outside of ideological areas in 14 postwar European democracies and the United States 11 2.1. Equilibrium configurations on nationalization of industry for varying degrees of partisan attachment, 1987 British general election 46 3.1. Patterns of party policy trajectories under the partisan vote model for simulations on a stable voter distribution 70 3.2. Patterns of party policy trajectories under the partisan vote model for simulations on a variable voter distribution 73 3.3. Further simulations on patterns of party policy trajectories under the partisan vote model for simulations on a variable voter distribution 74 4.1. Patterns of French parties policy trajectories for simulations on a stable voter distribution 89 4.2. Patterns of French parties policy trajectories for simulations based on an evolving, increasingly partisan, voter distribution 94 5.1. French parties policy trajectories for simulations based on the coalition partisan voting model 108 5.2. Distribution of respondents positions on Left-Right ideology and immigration, 1988 French Presidential Election Study 110 5.3. French parties policy trajectories for two-dimensional spatial competition (Left-Right immigration) and voting under the basic partisan model 115 5.4. French parties policy trajectories for two-dimensional spatial competition (Left-Right immigration) and voting under the coalition model 118 6.1. Equilibrium configurations on nationalization of industry for varying degrees of policy voting, 1992 British general election 139

xiv Tables 6.2. French parties equilibrium positions for four-party competition for varying degrees of policy voting, 1988 French election 142 7.1. Patterns of American parties policy trajectories under the partisan turnout vote model for the 1996 ANES voter distribution 163 7.2. Patterns of American parties policy trajectories under the partisan turnout vote model for the 1992 ANES voter distribution 165

Acknowledgments The material in this book was developed over the past three years, and has, during that period, been greatly improved by comments and suggestions provided by Ernest Adams, Bill Adams, Ian Budge, Dieter Burrell, Seth DeFilippis, Bernie Grofman, Kent Jennings, David Lazer, David McKay, Nicholas Miller, Gordon Tullock, Eric Smith, and John Woolley. I also note that, in addition to drawing heavily from both the basic Downsian framework and the vast behavioral literature on voting behavior, much of this work was directly inspired by Feld and Grofman s (1991) insight that voter biases arising from non-policyrelated considerations have fundamental implications for parties policy strategies. In addition, the sections of this book that consider parties cross-time policy strategies were inspired by Ian Budge s (1994) study of this same topic. I particularly thank Samuel Merrill III and Roy Pierce for their detailed and insightful comments on large portions of the manuscript. Samuel Merrill kindly gave his permission to include a summary of joint work in progress. The data sets used in this study were made available through the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), Ann Arbor, and are gratefully acknowledged. Chapter 2 is based in part on ideas presented in Adams 1998, while chapters 3 5 draw from Adams (forthcoming). I also extend special appreciation to my father Ernest Adams, my mother Anne, and my brother Bill for their support and encouragement during this enterprise. Finally, I gratefully acknowledge my wife Dorothy Adams, whose love and support made this book possible.