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Strategic and expressive voting

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  • Brad Taylor

Abstract

Critics of the expressive account of voting have argued that it is inconsistent with strategic voting. Since there is strong evidence that people vote strategically, this has been taken to show that many voters are at least partially instrumentally motivated. This paper argues that strategic voting in the relevant sense is consistent with entirely expressive political motivation. Building on an earlier suggestion by Geoffrey Brennan, I model voters as expressively valuing ideological position as well as the strategic pursuit of expressively-defined preferences. This model predicts strategic voting without instrumental preferences entering the voter’s calculus at all. I also suggest that expressive preferences for strategic behaviour can be usefully analysed in terms of dispositional choice. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Brad Taylor, 2015. "Strategic and expressive voting," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 159-170, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:copoec:v:26:y:2015:i:2:p:159-170
    DOI: 10.1007/s10602-014-9180-0
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Geoffrey Brennan & Alan Hamlin, 1998. "Expressive voting and electoral equilibrium," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 95(1), pages 149-175, April.
    2. Shayo, Moses & Harel, Alon, 2012. "Non-consequentialist voting," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 299-313.
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    11. Geoffrey Brennan, 2008. "Psychological dimensions in voter choice," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 137(3), pages 475-489, December.
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    20. Aaron Edlin & Andrew Gelman & Noah Kaplan, 2007. "Voting as a Rational Choice: Why and How People Vote to Improve the Well-Being of Others," NBER Working Papers 13562, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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    Cited by:

    1. Stephen Drinkwater & Colin Jennings, 2017. "Expressive voting and two-dimensional political competition: an application to law and order policy by New Labour in the UK," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 79-96, March.
    2. Richard Jankowski, 2024. "Explaining the decision to vote: non-nested and nested tests of three competing theories," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 41(3), pages 639-656, October.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Expressive voting; Strategic voting; Political dispositions; Revisionist public choice theory; B59; D70; H10;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B59 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Other
    • D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General
    • H10 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - General

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