Voting behavior under proportional representation

Peter Buisseret and Carlo Prato
Additional contact information
Peter Buisseret: Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

Journal of Theoretical Politics, 2020, vol. 32, issue 1, 96-111

Abstract: Understanding voter preferences in proportional representation (PR) systems is an essential first step towards understanding candidate selection and behavior. We unearth conceptual challenges of constructing a theory of sincere voting in PR elections. Using a rich but tractable framework, we propose a foundational theory of voting behavior in list PR systems. We show how voters’ expectations about the election outcome shape the relative salience of different candidates on a party’s ballot and ultimately determine their induced preferences over a party’s list. Our framework shows how voters allocate their attention across different ranks on a party’s ballot, and how this depends on each party’s relative popularity.

Keywords: Proportional representation; voting behavior; political preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0951629819892342 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:32:y:2020:i:1:p:96-111

DOI: 10.1177/0951629819892342

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Theoretical Politics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().