POLI 100C POLITICAL PARTIES
7 February 2006

  1. What is a Political Party?

    1. How Many Real Political Parties have there been in American History?

    2. Drawing the Line Between a Politically Relevant Interest Group and a Political Party (Freedom of Association and Freedom of Speech allow both to flourish!)

    3. Definition of an Interest Group: An Interest Group is a Voluntary Association of Individuals with a Shared Concern (economic or idealistic) that Tries to Influence Decisions of the Political System.

    4. The Two Types of Interest Groups -- Economic and Idealistic

      1. Economic Interest Groups

        1. Shared Concern: Perceived Economic or Physical Needs; e.g., jobs, health care, protection of investments, etc. (Madison: The most Common and Durable Source of Factions)

        2. Political Preferences with Respect to Economic Issues, at least since the end of the Second World War, have not been, relatively speaking, intensely held. Economic Growth made compromise possible. This appears to be Changing.

      2. Idealistic Interest Groups

        1. Shared Concern: Nonmaterial Beliefs or Values; e.g., abortion, gay rights, racial equality, etc.

        2. Idealistic Issues are usually of the form that the Political Preferences with Regard to them are Intensely Held.

        3. Idealistic Issues Tend to Be Zero Sum

    5. Are Political Parties Simply Coalitions (Confederations) of Interest Groups? NO

      1. There are Common Interests (National Survival; Judeo-Christian Moral values; Democratic values)

      2. Individuals tend to be cross-pressured by a variety of interests

    6. Lead in to Downs: The Party Method for Taking Power

      1. More than 1 party

      2. Periodic Elections

      3. Universal Adult Suffrage

      4. Party in Power Cannot Restrict Political Activity

      5. Parties do not try to take power by force

  2. Anthony Downs' An Economic Theory of Democracy

    1. The Rational Choice Paradigm -- Individuals are seen as maximizing their preferences in light of their beliefs. Downs uses strong form of Rational Choice (p.6).

    2. Basic Assumptions

      1. Methodological Individualism

        1. Group actions must be understandable in terms of individual choice. That is...

        2. We can understand social processes and outcomes in terms of people’s preferences and choices.

        3. This does not deny the behavioralist tradition – preferences come from somewhere!!!

        4. Outlaws anthropomorphic (attributing human – individual – qualities [characteristics] to collective entities) statements

      2. Purposive Action -- People’s actions are purposeful – An act or behavior can be interpreted as directed to the attainment of a goal.

    3. Rational Choice Theory Allows (this is controversial!):

      1. Scientific Explanation and Prediction

      2. Understanding of Human Action

    4. Problems

      1. We cannot observe desires and beliefs! Beliefs and desires are not real entities! They cannot cause things.

      2. Rational choice is too simple – people fail to maximize, they have intransitive preferences, they endorse conflicting values.

    5. But on the other hand ... how on earth could we make sense of our environment without something like belief-desire psychology?

      1. It enables us to make sense of the actions of others!

      2. Charity Principle – believing that others are rational enables us to make sense of the actions of others – it permits the coordination of activities!

    6. A Logical Framework

      1. Actions -- What you can do.

        1. Mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive

        2. You must choose one action – you can’t do two things at once!

        3. Example – 2004 Presidential election – vote Bush, vote Kerry, vote Nader, not-vote – you can’t do two things at once. Uncertainty plays a role – in many situations you cannot know whether or not your Action will produce the outcome you desire – the fact that you vote for Kerry does not mean he will win!

      2. Outcomes

        1. Mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive

        2. Only one outcome occurs!

        3. Example – 2004 Presidential election – Bush Wins, Kerry Wins, Nader Wins

      3. States of Nature -- Links Actions to Outcomes – an individual’s action plus other peoples decisions plus chance events of nature

        1. Mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive

        2. Only one state of nature occurs!

        3. Example – 2004 Presidential election simplified – form a 3 by 5 table –

          • 3 Actions {vote Bush, vote Kerry, Abstain},

          • 5 States of Nature {Bush loses by 2, Bush –1, Tie, Kerry +1, Kerry +2}

          • 15 Possible Outcomes in the Table

    7. Preferences -- In this framework what Action we choose depends on our Preferences Over the Outcomes NOT Preferences Over Actions.

    8. Downs Makes Very Strong Assumptions about Rationality:

      1. Preferences are Complete

      2. Preferences are Transitive

      3. Preferences are Stable across Choice Situations (Independence Condition)

    9. Definition of Rationality – Given that an individual’s preferences are complete, transitive, and independent, then they will act in accord with their preferences for final outcomes and their beliefs about the effectiveness of various actions available to them.

    10. Downs: Definition of Political Party – A team of individuals seeking to control the government by gaining office in a duly constituted election.

    11. Downs (????): Definition of Government – An organization that has a sufficient monopoly of control of enforce an orderly settlement of disputes with other organizations in the area.

    12. When a Party wins an election it IS the Government (Parliamentary type system)

    13. Goals of Party Members (attained by gaining office):

      1. Income

      2. Prestige

      3. Power

    14. Office is not sought as a means of carrying out policies – policies are means to the attainment of their private ends. NO IDEOLOGY HERE.

    15. Parties formulate policies to win elections; they do not win elections to formulate policies.

      1. Because Party == Government, the Government will act rationally to maximize political support.

      2. Note the Logic – Team of individuals seeking their own goals leads to a vote maximizing government.

      3. Hence you get a Market-Like Result. Orderly Representative Government emerges from individual-level self-interested behavior. (Downs is an Economist!)

    16. Downs’ Model of Voters –

      1. They are Rational

      2. They receive a constant stream of benefits from Government activity (police and fire protection, schools, health care, garbage disposal, water, electricity, flood control, military protection, etc.)

      3. Voter’s Decision: Expected Party Differential = Expected Utility Income from Incumbents (if reelected) – Expected Utility Income from Opposition.

      4. Voters have (symmetric) single-peaked utility functions over the policy space.

      5. Voter Information –

        1. Human Capacity for Absorbing Information is Limited;

        2. Hence, some means of Acquiring Politically Relevant information is needed;

        3. Acquiring information is costly -- hence, we will continue to invest resources in acquiring information until the marginal return from information equals the marginal costs of the information.

    17. Spatial Theory of Voting

      1. Citizens and Candidates are distributed over the policy space.

      2. Citizens have symmetric single-peaked utility functions.

      3. Citizens will vote for the candidate closest to them.

    18. General Result – Parties Converge to the Median Voter (not true in reality)

    19. Unimodal Electorate (Downs Figure 2, p.118) and ...

      1. Everyone Votes

      2. Individuals Abstain due to Indifference

      3. Individuals Abstain due to Alienation


    20. Bimodal Electorate (Downs Figure 3, p.119) and ...

      1. Everyone Votes

      2. Individuals Abstain due to Indifference

      3. Individuals Abstain due to Alienation


    21. Entry of New Voters -- British Example (Downs Figure 6, p. 129)



    22. The 2000 Presidential Election in the United States