Multiparty Electoral Competition in the Netherlands and Germany: A Model Based on Multinomial Probit

Norman Schofield (), Andrew D. Martin, Kevin M. Quinn and Andrew B. Whitford

Public Choice, 1998, vol. 97, issue 3, 257-93

Abstract: A typical assumption of electoral models of party competition is that parties adopt policy positions so as to maximize expected vote share. Here the authors use Euro-barometer survey data and European elite-study data from 1979 for the Netherlands and Germany to construct a stochastic model of voter response, based on multinomial probit estimation. For each of these countries, they estimate a pure spatial electoral voting model and a joint spatial model. The latter model also includes individual voter and demographic characteristics. The pure spatial models for the two countries quite accurately described the electoral response as a stochastic function of party positions. The authors use these models to perform a thought experiment so as to estimate the expected vote maximizing party positions. They go on to propose a model of internal party decision-making based both on preelection electoral estimation and postelection coalition bargaining. This model suggests why the various parties in the period in question did not adopt vote maximizing positions. The authors argue that maximizing expected vote will not, in general, be a rational party strategy in multiparty political systems which are based on proportional representation. Coauthors are Andrew D. Martin, Kevin M. Quinn, and Andrew B. Whitford. Copyright 1998 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Date: 1998
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