Roy Pierce

Political representation in France

There can scarcely be a greater tribute to the vitality of the Fifth Republics democracy than this monumental work. A searching analysis of how the will of the voters is translated into authoritative political decision making, this book not only uncovers political truths about contemporary France but also provides a model for the study of other popular forms of government. The authors set out to find an answer to the perplexing question of how representative government operates in France in the seemingly unstable context of multiparties. By interviewing voters as well as legislators in 1967 and in 1968 after the great upheaval, and by monitoring policies of the National Assembly from 1967 to 1973, the authors test relationships between public opinion and decision making. They are able to sort out the abiding political cues that orient the French voter, to establish the normal electoral processes, to gauge the nature of mass perceptions of the political options available to voters, and to interpret the strikes, riots, and demonstrations of 1968 as a channel of communication parallel to the electoral process itself. Lucid in style, methodologically sophisticated, and often comparative in approach, Political Representation in France is a seminal work for political scientists, sociologists, and historians.

It was Party Identification all along: Question Order Effects on Reports of Party Identification in Britain

The British voter is less likely than the American to make a distinction between his current electoral choice and a more general partisan disposition. This article investigates whether this difference might be due to a methodological difference between the British and American Election surveys: the British surveys, unlike the American, have placed the party identification question after the question on electoral choice, and this order may encourage the British respondents to bring their reports of their party identification into line with their actual votes. A split-sample panel study experiment was conducted to test this hypothesis. The results were not decisive, but they did suggest that the ‘improper’ question order elicited a smaller proportion of ‘true’ party identifiers and produced response uncertainty in the reporting of party identification. The concept of party identification is routinely employed in the analysis of British electoral behaviour, but it carries with it the aura of original sin that it acquired when Butler and Stokes (1969) first investigated the phenomenon in the British political context but preferred to label it ‘partisan self-image’ rather than call it by the familiar name used in the United States. Butler and Stokes acknowledged that partisan self-images in Britain displayed many of the properties associated with party identification in the United States. The strength of partisan self-image intensified with age; partisan self-images were more Prepared for delivery at the 1991 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, The Washington Hilton, 29 August to 1 September 1991. Copyright by the American Political Science Association.

Partisanship and the party system

The defining properties of party identification long established for the United States fail with some frequency to be replicated in electoral systems abroad. A number of plausible suggestions have been made to account for this system-level variability: Most of these have some face merit, but none taken alone is adequate to provide a full cross-system explanation. Variation in party system size or fractionalization has recently been discussed as another source of differential dynamics of party loyalties. Unfortunately, the conventional means of assessing party identification properties are subject to rather severe artifacts, typically ignored, when comparisons are made across systems of very different party size. The conceptual stakes underlying key methods options for such comparisons—most notably, between continuous and discrete statistical tools—are examined. The use of continuous statistics for systems of very multiple parties rests on an assumption that voters do in some degree regard these party systems as imbedded in a continuous space. A simple test for this assumption is mounted in four systems and unsurprisingly it shows very clear support. Analysis of residuals beyond this obvious result add several points of less obvious information about the distribution of party affect in such systems.

Comment on Fleury and Lewis-Beck: "Anchoring the French Voter: Ideology versus Party"

hen asked to review an earlier draft of this article, our comments roughly equalled the manuscript text in length, since there seemed to be a remarkable number of misrepresentations of our French work, along with a variety of errors of other kinds. This is a cleaner version of the argument, although at least two key misinterpretations remain. In a sense this is not surprising, since correction at these two points would leave a very unpersuasive article. On the other hand, given that the extensive bodies of evidence within our volume Political Representation in France (henceforth, PRiF) that sharply contradict judgments by Fleury and Lewis-Beck (henceforth, F&L-B) have now been specifically pointed out to them, it is depressing that they continue to keep such evidence from the reader. Indeed, while they are certainly entitled to dispute this counterevidence, it is hard to have an intelligent discussion unless they are willing to reveal why they contest it. We hope that the general reader interested in these issues will at least consult our many relevant discussions in PRiF rather than count on the impressions of our positions left by this article.

Left-right perceptions, partisan preferences, electoral participation, and partisan choice in France

An analysis based on survey data shows that electoral participation at the second ballot in France can be accounted for by partisan preferences but not by left-right perceptions of party locations. This finding runs counter to the work of Rosenthal and Sen (1973), who validated a spatial model of participation at the second ballot employing left-right perceptions and partisan preferences interchangeably. Because they use aggregate data, Rosenthal and Sen (1973) are restricted in two ways that, operating interactively, lead them to an unwarranted conclusion concerning the power of left-right perceptions. Later work by Rosenthal and Sen (1977) indicating that left-right perceptions can account for shifts in partisan choice between the two ballots by voters who have decided to participate is confirmed, but partisan preferences account even better for second-ballot choices. Left-right perceptions and partisan sympathies are related, but discrete partisan attitudes are a more powerful factor than left-right perceptions in French second-ballot electoral behavior.

Modelling electoral second choices: thwarted voters in the United States, France, and Russia

Abstract Thwarted voters are voters who are prevented by the play of the electoral process from casting their vote for their preferred candidates at the decisive ballot, whether this involves primary elections for party nominations, as in the United States, or a two-ballot electoral system, as in France and Russia. When thwarted voters are anchored in basic political orientations, such as party identification or left–right ideological positioning, they must choose among three alternatives: loyalty to their basic orientation even in the absence of their preferred candidate, abstention, or defection to the candidate of a different orientation. Despite the distinct constitutional, political, and cultural characteristics of France, Russia, and the United States, a single decision-theoretic model deriving from the basic elements of electoral behavior is more than tolerably successful in accounting for the choices made by the thwarted voters in all three countries.

Attitudinal Change and Elite Circulation: French Socialist Candidates in 1967 and 1978

The effects of elite circulation on attitudinal change in the French Socialist Party between 1967 and 1978 are examined using interview data to estimate aggregate party change, which is decomposed into change due to conversion of old elites and change due to the replacement of old elites by new ones. A typology of net party change is constructed, and the degree of stability of elite opinion is investigated at the district level. It is found that elite circulation can be a force for organizational continuity as well as for organizational change, and that there is stability of elite opinion at the district level only on issues pertaining to traditional local party orientations or constant district interests.

TOWARD THE FORMATION OF A PARTISAN ALIGNMENT IN FRANCE

This article investigates the extent to which and the ways in which a basic partisan alignment appeared to be forming in France between 1958 and 1988. During that period, the incidence of party identification rose from abnormally low to normal levels, and the composition of the alignment evolved from indeterminacy, through a left-right standoff, to Socialist party predominance. The basic question asked is how a partisan alignment is createdin the first place. The main elements of the answer suggested are by simplifying, clarifying, and stabilizing the terms of electoral choice. This process is traced closely, with special reference to the incidence of PI and the composition of the alignment by age in 1988, and including a comparison between France in 1968 and the U.S. in 1932. Finally, the fragility of the 1988 alignment is underscored. Comparatively new and shaped mainly by the partisan identifications of the younger citizens, the 1988 alignment was vulnerable to any weakening of the conditions that contributed to creating it. The party with the most to lose was the Socialist party, which had gained the most while the party system stabilized and the incidence of party identification rose.

Thwarted voters at the 2000 US presidential election

Abstract This article examines the behavior at the 2000 US presidential election of the self-described Democrats who, prior to the election but after the candidates were nominated, preferred Bill Bradley to Al Gore, as well as of the Republicans who had a higher opinion of John McCain than they did of George W. Bush. These “thwarted voters” are examined with regard to turnout, candidate choice, and motivations, and they are compared on these dimensions with thwarted voters at earlier US presidential elections. Attention is given to estimating the extent to which their behavior in 2000 was critical for the popular vote totals, and counterfactual analysis is employed to estimate the probable effects on the election’s outcome of marginal alterations in the voters’ perceptions of the candidates’ attributes.

Constancy of Legislative Perceptions of Constituency Opinion French Socialist Candidates in 1967 and 1978

This article develops the dynamic implications of the Miller-Stokes model of constituency representation by exploring the extent to which there was constancy between two “generations” of French Socialist party candidates for the National Assembly from the same constituencies, in their perceptions of the opinions of their constituents. The data derive from personal interviews conducted with the candidates shortly after the legislative elections of 1967 and 1978. The phenomena discussed include the relationship between constancy of candidate perceptions and accuracy of candidate perceptions. The authors also examine the extent to which the candidates base their perceptions of district opinion on the political composition of their constituencies. That practice has daunting implications both for the comparative study of representation and for the representative process itself.