U.S. GOVERNMENT & POLITICS, SPRING 2011

ELECTIONS, DAY 2: PATTERNS OF ELECTIONS AND VOTING BEHAVIOR

Woll 36 (Key, Critical elections), 37 (Berelson et al.), 38 (Key, The Responsible Electorate)

Wednesday, May 2

• Why people vote the way they vote (vote choice) is the most studied subject in US political science; click here for a chart showing the major factors and leading theories of vote choice (we will look at 2008 voting patterns in more detail Friday)

Woll 36, V.O. Key, “A Theory of Critical Elections”

The importance of this selection is not so much the specifics of New England state voting patterns in 1928 – it is the larger point that some elections transform the nature of support for the two major parties. Key termed these critical elections and this concept helps support the theories of realignment in U.S. electoral politics (discussed in OSY 314-315).

Woll 37, Berelson, Lazarsfeld and McPhee, “Democratic Practice and Democratic Theory”

These authors – among the founders of the field of study we now call communications – discuss the distinction between individual decisions to participate (and how participating citizens choose) and collective characteristics of the U.S. public. Both this reading and the next one are sympathetic toward the multiple demands of life that make it difficult for ‘regular citizens’ to know enough about politics to participate. The argument here is that the electoral system as a whole functions well enough even if individual citizens do not always have much information about or interest in politics.

Woll 38, V.O. Key, “The Responsible Electorate”

In this very famous opening chapter of his final book (1964), Key makes an even stronger case that the U.S. public does the best it can in elections (“voters are not fools,” 216), given the information and choices available to the public. “If the people can choose only from among rascals, they are certain to choose a rascal” (213).

Questions for today:

1. What kinds of events or conditions in U.S. politics and society seem most likely to spark a critical election/realignment, and why?

2. Considering the discussion of why people vote the way they do, examine the vote choice chart and discuss which aspects listed there seem MOST influential on Americans’ vote choices, and why.

3. Are voters fools? Discuss.