Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T05:02:57.619Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Knowledge, Strategy, and Momentum in Presidential Primaries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2017

Henry E. Brady
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Two dynamic rational choice models of primaries are analyzed that demonstrate both reformers and their critics are right about primaries. Primaries can provide public instruction and a better informed electorate, and they can be poorly designed lotteries: A “recognition” and learning model describes how changing media coverage affects voters' knowledge about candidates and their subsequent voting behavior. A “strategic” voting model describes the dynamic implications of strategic voting and “horse-race” coverage by the media. We find that the recognition model has the normatively appealing dynamic of information leading to broadly self-interested outcomes while the strategy model has the unappealing behavior of a lottery the odds of which are fixed by the media's harsh judgments of who's winning and who's losing.

In coming to these conclusions, this paper illustrates a number of methodological points such as the usefulness of macromodels based upon assumptions about individual behavior, the analysis of macromodels using methods from electrical engineering, the strengths and limitations of analytical results versus simulations for understanding dynamic models, and the use of “ideal type” recognition and strategic voting models to clarify the systemic consequences of individual risk aversion and strategic voting. More generally, the paper shows how models can be used as narratives or parables for organizing disparate observations, refining our intuitions, and directing our research efforts.

Type
Research Article
Information
Political Analysis , Volume 5 , 1993 , pp. 1 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Political Methodology 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abramson, Paul R., Aldrich, John H., Paolino, Phil, and Rohde, David W. 1992. “Sophisticated Voting in the 1988 Presidential Primaries.” American Political Science Review 86: 55–69.Google Scholar
Aggarwal, J. K., and Vidyasagar, M., ed. 1977. Non-Linear Systems: Stability Analysis. Vol. 16 of Benchmark Papers in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Stroudsburg, Penn.: Dowden, Hutchinson and Ross, Inc. Google Scholar
Aldrich, John H. 1980a. Before the Convention: Strategies and Choices in Presidential Nomination Campaigns. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Aldrich, John H. 1980b. “A Dynamic Model of Presidential Nomination Campaigns.” American Political Science Review 74, no. 3 (September): 651–69.Google Scholar
Arterton, F. Christopher. 1978a. “Campaign Organizations Confront the Media-Political Environment.” In Barber 1978, 3–25.Google Scholar
Arterton, F. Christopher. 1978b. “The Media Politics of Presidential Campaigns: A Study of the Carter Nomination Drive.” In Barber 1978, 26–54.Google Scholar
Barber, James David, ed. 1978. Race for the Presidency: The Media and the Nominating Process. American Assembly. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Bartels, Larry. 1986. “Issue Voting under Uncertainty.” American Journal of Political Science 30, no. 4 (November): 709–28.Google Scholar
Bartels, Larry M. 1988. Presidential Primaries and the Dynamics of Public Choice. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bicker, William E. 1978. “Network Television News and the 1976 Presidential Primaries.” In Barber 1978, 79–110.Google Scholar
Black, Jerome K. 1978. “The Multicandidate Calculus of Voting: Applications to Canadian Federal Elections.” American Journal of Political Science 22: 609–38.Google Scholar
Brady, Henry E. 1989. “Is Iowa News?” In Squire, Peverill, ed., First in the Nation. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.Google Scholar
Brady, Henry E. 1990. “The Dimensional Analysis of Ranking Data.” American Journal of Political Science 34: 1017–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brady, Henry E., and Ansolabehere, Stephen. 1989. “The Nature of Utility Functions in Mass Publics.” American Political Science Review 83, no. 1 (March): 143–63.Google Scholar
Brady, Henry E., and Johnston, Richard. 1987. “What's the Primary Message: Horse-Race or Issue Journalism?” In Orren, Gary and Polsby, Nelson, eds., Media and Momentum, 127–86. Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House.Google Scholar
Brady, Henry E., and Sniderman, Paul. 1985. “Attitude Attribution: A Group Basis for Political Reasoning.” American Political Science Review 79, no. 4 (December): 1061–78.Google Scholar
Brams, Steven J. 1978. The Presidential Election Game. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Brams, Steven J., and Fishbum, Peter C. 1980. “Deducing Preferences and Choices in the 1980 Presidential Election.” Typescript.Google Scholar
Cain, Bruce E. 1978. “Strategic Voting in Britain.” American Journal of Political Science 22: 639–55.Google Scholar
Davis, Otto, Hinich, Melvin J., and Ordeshook, Peter C. 1970. “An Expository Development of a Mathematical Model of the Electoral Process.” American Political Science Review 64: 426–48.Google Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Brothers.Google Scholar
Enelow, James M., and Hinich, Melvin J. 1984. The Spatial Theory of Voting: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hahn, Wolfgang. 1967. Stability of Motion. Berlin, Heidelberg, and New York: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Henrick, J. K., and Paynter, H. M., eds. 1978. Nonlinear System Analysis and Synthesis. New York: American Society of Mechanical Engineers.Google Scholar
Johnston, Richard, Blais, Andre, Brady, Henry E., and Crete, Jean. 1992. Letting the People Decide: Dynamics of a Canadian Election. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Keech, William R., and Matthews, Donald R. 1976. The Party's Choice. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Keeter, S., and Zukin, Cliff. 1983. Uninformed Choice: The Failure of the New Presidential Nominating System. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Kramer, Gerald H. 1977. “Dynamical Model of Political Equilibrium.” Journal of Economic Theory 16: 310–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luce, R. Duncan. 1977. “The Choice Axiom After Twenty Years .” Journal of Mathematical Psychology 15: 215–33.Google Scholar
Luenberger, David G. 1979. Introduction to Dynamic Systems: Theory, Models, and Applications. New York: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Marshall, Thomas R. 1981. Presidential Nominations in a Reform Age. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Matthews, Donald R. 1978. “Winnowing.” In Barber 1978, 55–78.Google Scholar
McFadden, Daniel. 1973. “Conditional Logit Analysis of Qualitative Choice Behavior.” In Zarembka, P., ed., Frontiers in Econometrics, 105–42. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
McKelvey, Richard D. 1975. “Policy Related Voting and Electoral Equilibrium.” Econometrica 43, nos. 5-6: 815–43.Google Scholar
McKelvey, Richard D., and Ordeshook, Peter C. 1972. “A General Theory of the Calculus of Voting.” In Herndon, J. F., and Bernd, J. L., eds. Mathematical Applications in Political Science IV. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.Google Scholar
McKelvey, Richard D., and Ordeshook, Peter C. 1985a. “Sequential Elections with Limited Information.” American Journal of Political Science 29: 480–512.Google Scholar
McKelvey, Richard D., and Ordeshook, Peter C. 1985b. “Elections with Limited Information: A Fulfilled Expectations Model Using Contemporaneous Poll and Endorsement Information as Information Sources.” Journal of Economic Theory 36: 55–85.Google Scholar
Page, Benjamin I. 1978. Choices and Echoes in Presidential Elections. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Patterson, Thomas E. 1980. The Mass Media Election: How Americans Choose Their President. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Pomper, Gerald M. 1966. Nominating the President. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Robinson, Michael, and Sheehan, Margaret. 1983. Over the Wire and on TV: CBS and UPI in Campaign ‘80. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Rogers, Everett M., with Floyd Shoemaker, F. 1971. Communication of Innovations. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Shanks, J. Merrill, and Palmquist, Bradley. 1981. “Intra-Party Candidate Choice in 1980: An Early Portrait of Pre-Convention Preference.” Paper presented at the 1981 meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Cincinnati, April 16-17.Google Scholar
Shepsle, Kenneth A. 1972. “The Strategy of Ambiguity: Uncertainty and Electoral Competition.” American Political Science Review 66: 555–68.Google Scholar
Solow, Robert M. 1970. Growth Theory: An Exposition. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Vidyasagar, M. 1978. Nonlinear Systems Analysis. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Weaver, David H., Graber, Doris A., McCombs, Maxwell E., and Chaim Eyal, H. 1981. Media Agenda-Setting in a Presidential Election: Issues, Images, and Interest. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 1949. Max Weber on the Methodology of the Social Sciences, trans. and ed. Shils, Edward and Finch, Henry A. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press.Google Scholar
Weisberg, Herbert F., and Rusk, Jerrold G. 1970. “Dimensions of Candidate Evaluation.” American Political Science Review 74, no. 4: 1167–85.Google Scholar