« What I've been reading | Main | Vox »
A simple theory of elections
Will the Foley scandal costs the Republicans votes, as is often suggested? In my view, not so much. When foreign policy, terrorism, and social issues are the questions of the day, the Republicans tend to do well. It doesn't matter so much if the Republicans have botched those very issues, provided those issues make the headlines. Those are the issues which make the Republicans seen important. Voters punish Republicans for bad governing "in the polls" but not always "in the booth."
The North Korean crisis helps the Republicans. Even the botched war in Iraq helps the Republicans. No matter how badly the Republicans do, people (rightly or wrongly) trust the Democrats with national security even less. Along related lines, the Republicans will never get much credit for the rather high levels of discretionary spending pushed by the Bush Administration. Even bringing up such spending gets voters in a "Democrat frame of mind."
The Democrats have their best chance when voters are focused on the economy. It is neuroeconomics at work; the very topic activates the part of the brain that leads people to vote on way or the other.
It was safe to vote for Clinton once the Cold War ended. More generally, Republican competence in foreign affairs is the greatest friend the Democrats have right now.
Think about it.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on October 10, 2006 at 06:55 AM in Political Science | Permalink
Comments
You may be right. FDR was elected four times, and most of his policies made the Great Depression worse. Government failure does not necessarily lead to political failure.
Posted by: Eric Hanneken at Oct 10, 2006 9:55:09 AM
Spot on. I think this is why we see the changes in wage inequality over time - because the voters make it an issue (or not), which represents a broader trend towards less- or more-restricted free markets.
As an aside, I have read that there are studies that suggest that illegal immigrants are artificially inflating both the "lack of health care" in the US and the wage inequality problem. I can't find good data on that via google - that seems like a great topic to discuss at more length.
Posted by: jb at Oct 10, 2006 9:55:52 AM
If you’re argument is right, and if the political parties recognize it, then a rational voter should presumably do exactly the opposite. The Republicans have an incentive to screw up foreign policy, and the Democrats have an incentive to screw up the economy. So if you’re concerned about foreign policy, you should vote Democratic, and if you’re concerned about the economy, you should vote Republican.
Posted by: knzn at Oct 10, 2006 11:00:26 AM
Eric: Tired talking point about FDR. He was massively reelected in '36 because the economy had improved dramatically, though not all the way back to '29 levels. '40 & '44 probably had more to do with the war.
It might be fair to object that saying "FDR fixed the depression" is simplistic, but saying "most of his policies made the depression worse" is overly negative.
Tyler: I agree there is a perverse incentive for the Republicans to bungle foreign policy lately. Only an administration dominated by political operatives would succumb so completely to it however.
knzn: if you're concerned about the economy you 'obviously' should vote Democratic given the track records of Bush and Clinton. So I don't agree there is quite the same perverse incentive for Democrats on domestic policy. Maybe on a longer time-scale you could make that case, but such a huge, glaring exception in the first data point kind of undermines the theory.
Posted by: STS at Oct 10, 2006 11:25:34 AM
The lack of trust in Democrats on national security issues started with Korea and then Viet Nam. They were not only blamed for the loss in Viet Nam, but for starting both wars. It was frquently pointed out that war was much more likely when a Democrat was President. Republicans were thought as the party that prevented wars, or stopped them. Iraq tends to undermine that belief.
Posted by: joan at Oct 10, 2006 11:27:54 AM
I agree that this dynamic is at work. I sometimes call it the "What's Wrong With Kansas" effect, because, whether or not that book asserts this theory, it did inspire me with this theory.
Question is, what can be done about it. It's a HORRIBLY perverse insentive. Does politics work this badly in other countries?
Posted by: michael vassar at Oct 10, 2006 11:43:10 AM
Parties don't start wars, individuals do. The current two party system is a disaster no doubt, but no less than the voters that choose a party rather than a candidate. Bush, Rove, and especially Wolfowitz had agendas. Finish what GHWB started.
Posted by: KP at Oct 10, 2006 12:06:22 PM
The GOP's chances have been much improved by the last 10 years of "protect the incumbent" gerrymandering. No matter how vile, felonious and awful your rep was, you will vote his/her replacement in before you vote for the other party. That's the theory, and we'll soon see its efficacy.
Posted by: Who? me? at Oct 10, 2006 1:21:19 PM
An extreme examle of this effect is Winston Churchill, who was unceremoniously tossed out after WWII.
The parties win when the issues on the mind of voters are the issues where the party is
considered to be strong. This consideration is the results of many factors, but is far
more rational than Tyler's post suggests. Why? Because huge number of decisions affecting
the implementation of a policy are carried out by political appointees. If a party is
known for strength on issue X, then the people hired by the elected officials will tend to
be strong on X.
This issues can and do change. Republicans did not sieze the foreign policy issue, the
Dems abandonded it over the course of three decades (and seem to be doing little to
reclaim it.) OTOH, the part of Lincoln coasted on civil rights for decades, only to start
pushing again in the 50's and 60's. LBJ then led the D's in one of the greatest about-
faces in history.
No matter what an R does on civil rights today, if that's the subject, the D's win. The
only way to change a situation like this is to either leap-frog or spend a lot of energy
to convince the electorate that your position is superior.
Posted by: Nathan Zook at Oct 10, 2006 1:24:38 PM
So, if Republicans do well when social
issues are high on the list of concerns,
does this mean that Foleygate will help them?
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Oct 10, 2006 1:40:29 PM
Coke would kill for that kind of branding.
Posted by: bhauth at Oct 10, 2006 1:55:26 PM
You sound just like Tom Tomorrow's latest. But he is joking.
Posted by: Gunnar at Oct 10, 2006 2:37:30 PM
you may think foley doesn't matter much, but tradesports says you're wrong (and i trust the markets, though there's still time for them to shift again).
Posted by: dj superflat at Oct 10, 2006 6:09:57 PM
dj_superflat makes a good point.
Prediction markets like tradesports are THE BEST predictors of election outcomes. Better than the pollsters and better than any so-called expert. Not one of the pollsters or experts predicted the outcome of the last Australia Federal election (goverment returned with an increased majority), all of the various markets did.
Check out - Andrew Leigh and Justin Wolfers 'Competing Approaches to Forecasting Elections: Economic Models, Opinion Polling and Prediction Markets'
Posted by: Clniton Mc at Oct 10, 2006 6:34:28 PM
A similar dynamic is at work on education policy, which is generally run by the left in the USA. Perversely, the worse the education system fails kids, the more voters feel they need Democrats in charge of the schools. Dems have mindshare on "cares about kids and education" -- even if the policies they espouse (education as a govt jobs program for teachers) are the cause of the problem.
A counter-example to this is the environment. By practically every known measure -- air quality, water quality, forests, etc, etc -- the environment has been improving. Yet demand for Dem policies remain high. I chalk this up largely to scientific ignorance and superstitious thinking among Americans. People are genuinely afraid of 'chemicals' and want fewer parts per billion, regardless of any actual health risk. Fears of contamination are, I think, hard-wired into human nature and fairly impervious to arguments based on actual evidence.
World's a funny place.
Posted by: mike at Oct 10, 2006 7:07:17 PM
Mike is right about education and the environment. I did a college internship for a major environmental group during Clinton's first year, and the leaders there frequently complained that fundraising dropped during Democratic presidencies, and that Clinton actually did less for the environment than Bush 41, since he knew he had the environmental vote sewn up.
OTH, the perverse incentives are even worse for nonprofit lobbies. Progress on environmental issues is a direct threat to the job of every pro-environment fundraiser and lobbyist.
Posted by: DK at Oct 10, 2006 9:52:47 PM
I agree with the theory, but I am less pessimistic about the consequences. Yes, we vote Republican when national security concerns take center stage. Yes, Republicans as a group have an incentive to keep foreign affairs in the spotlight by bungling national security policy. But this is not true of Republicans individually. While we may not defect to a Democrat when Republican incumbents botch the war in Iraq, we will consider a different Republican. Poorly executed foreign policy creates an opening for other Republicans offering a fix. The incentive for Republican candidates individually, then, is to live up to their party’s image. Likewise with Democrats and the economic policy.
Posted by: blink at Oct 11, 2006 12:39:00 AM
Cute theory, yes. But the evidence is mixed at best. On the environment, it's plausible that Bush41 "did more" than Clinton. But Bush43 quickly moved to reverse/nullify most of what either Clinton or Bush41 did. So which party is "incented" to do what?
Not to mention the fact that Clinton was constrained for 6 years to work with a Republican Congress no more concerned about environmental issues than Bush43. So which party is "in control"?
Cute Theory, meet Ugly Facts. (Why am I not surprised Cute Theory ignores Ugly Facts and continues to attract all the attention ;)
Posted by: STS at Oct 11, 2006 12:06:53 PM
I have yet to read any critic of the "botched war in Iraq" offer a realistic alternative to Bush's strategy and Rummy's low force tactics which would result in fewer US deaths.
I flatly do not believe that "more troops", with more targets, accidents, and mistakes, would have meant fewer US deaths.
It's intellectually dubious, if not dishonest, to call something botched with no standard of how it could have been done correctly.
Perhaps I missed it? (I doubt that any unbotched scenario has been written here, but I'm not a total regular.)
Posted by: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad at Oct 11, 2006 7:37:21 PM
Well, this whole discussion just became rather curious given
today's underreported accounts of the Lancet article on civilian
deaths in Iraq. Many are dismissing this as some kind of political
stunt, but this is a British medical journal, one of the most
prestigious, and the methodoology of the article has been vetted
by serious refereeing, and the kicker for me is that apparently
they have actual death warrants for a majority of those reported on.
Bottom line? Over 600,000 "excess deaths" since the US invasion of
Iraq, more than all the civilians killed by Saddam in his 34 years of
rule, with reports now also having higher rates of torture than under
him. History will be remembering these numbers, far higher than any
caused by the actions of any US president in history, and we are
collectively responsible, folks.
Of course, the thread here is probably at least partly correct. I
doubt that this report will have any effect whatsoever on the upcoming
election, mostly because only a tiny percentage of Americans will be
aware of it, and those that are will not want to make much of it, the
Republicans for obvious reasons (other than to dismiss it as a politically
motivated stunt), and the Dems for the reasons noted here, that it may
simply distract voters from Foleygate and focus more on national security,
thus helping the Republicans.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Oct 11, 2006 10:18:27 PM
Under-reported? Hardly - it was the front page of one of the Bay Area newspapers today.
Actual death warrants? Hardly: "But he said the number of deaths in the families interviewed — 547 in the post-invasion period versus 82 in a similar period before the invasion — was too few to extrapolate up to more than 600,000 deaths across the country."
Posted by: Anthony at Oct 12, 2006 12:49:29 AM
Anthony,
Maybe in the Bay Area. It was page 12 in the Washington
Post and did not appear at all in my local paper.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Oct 12, 2006 10:12:39 AM
Liberty Dad:
I'm puzzled what word you would consider reasonable if "botched" doesn't apply here.
The low troop numbers were proven reasonable for the "major combat operations" (as Bush called them on "mission accomplished" day). That was controversial w/in the military and Rumsfeld was proven correct. Fast and light indeed works against comic-opera class armies.
The real questions here are:
a. was this war "winnable" on any basis whatever, given the geopolitical context?
b. could Iraq have been stabilized better had different decisions been made?
My suspicion (and that of most experts aside from the Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz wing of the administration) is that the answer to a) is NO.
Not disbanding the Iraqi army might have been one way to ensure greater stability (use Saddam's levers of control while gradually filtering out the worst elements ) and hence fewer casualties. Providing adequate body armor or heavier humvee armor might have reduced casualties.
More troops in the early post-war period could have helped a lot by creating a stronger "presence" (more cops on the beat). But given my view of the inherent unfeasibility of the Iraq project, I wouldn't work too hard to convince you more troops would have been decisive.
That's what I could come up with in 5 minutes. It really isn't hard.
It is rumored that the James Baker commision will recommend (safely after 11/7) redeployment to bases outside population centers. When that is implemented, we will have achieved the original aim: permanent US presence near Iraq's major oil reserves. Perhaps a defensible objective from some angles, but the path to it was pretty damaging to US soft power (to say nothing of many thousands of innocent Iraqi by-standers).
Posted by: STS at Oct 12, 2006 4:51:10 PM
Mr. Cowen,
You're actually hitting on something that political scientists have studied largely with respect to ads. One piece in, I think, "Campaigns and Elections American Style" noted that ads which conformed to party stereotypes were most effective. As I recall this was the case regardless of the current political situation. In the copy I had (1995) I think this piece was chapter 7 "Paid Media Advertising" by Jay Bryant. It's a discouraging finding to say the least.
Posted by: cory kates at Oct 12, 2006 11:31:25 PM
Look-if a blog is going to be posted on the theory of elections, why don't we leave party choices out of it?
Why don't we just focus on the fact that upcoming elections for districts are coming up soon and that THAT is our priority.
Has anyone not learned yet that it is not proper to discuss party with others?
Aside from that, before you know it, Presidential elections will be coming up soon.
Keep your opinions to yourself and focus on the big issues that are laid out in front of you.
You have a complaint about something? THEN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
Posted by: Shannon at Oct 13, 2006 12:03:50 AM
