Three Competing Paradigm in Explaining Voting Behavior The

Three Competing Paradigm in Explaining Voting Behavior • The Sociological Approach • The Psychological Approach • The Economic Approach

• Sociological Approach: The Columbia school – The structural conditions and social constraints that voters found them in should be the starting point for voting behavior. The focal point is social class or ethnicity. • Psychological Approach: The Michigan school – All human behaviors are guided by pre-existing psychological propensities. The focal point is the mediating role of long-term psychological predisposition—party identity in guiding citizen voting. • The Economic Approach: The Rochester school – All human behaviors are driven by utilitymaximizing motivation. The focal point is the expected net material benefits that parties/candidates bring to the voter.

Explaining Voting and Non-Voting • Psychological Approach: Propensity to vote is a function of 1. Sense of citizen duty 2. Political efficacy 3. Intensity of partisanship • Rational Choice Approach – The paradox of voting – First remedy by Anthony Downs: to support and sustain democratic system

Efforts to Resolve the Paradox • Anthony Downs: R = pj. B - C (R為投票所得報酬， B為利益落差，pj為個人投票能夠導致此利益落差 的機率，C為投票成本 • Riker and Ordeshook: R = pj. B ＋D - C (D為支持民主或候選人得到的滿足） • Ferejohn and Fiorina: Decision rule based on Minimax strategy to minimize the possibility of maximum regret • Retrospective Voting: Party identification is no more than a running tally of past evaluation of the performance of one party versus the other.