Paolino 2005

University of Utah

Voter Behavior in Democratizing Nations: Reconsidering the Two-Step ModelAuthor(s): Philip PaolinoSource: Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Mar., 2005), pp. 107-117Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. on behalf of the University of UtahStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3595600 .

Accessed: 07/09/2014 21:46

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Sage Publications, Inc. and University of Utah are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to Political Research Quarterly.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 129.59.95.115 on Sun, 7 Sep 2014 21:46:58 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sage

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=utah

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3595600?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


Voter Behavior in Democratizing Nations:

Reconsidering the Two-Step Model

PHILIP PAOLINO, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS

A prominent literature on voting behavior during democratic transition in Mexico focuses upon two considerations: voters' attitudes toward the dominant party and their uncertainty about the consequences of opposition government. These two considerations are said to form the first step of a "two-step" process that voters use to determine which party to support. In this article, I examine the evidence for this argument, using data from both Mexico and Taiwan and conclude that voters in nations with hegemonic parties give greater weight to the public policies of the dominant party than the two-step model argues. These findings have important implications for the opposition's behavior in trying to complete a transition from a one-party dominant government to a multi-party democracy.

T he process by which nations transform their governments from authoritarian regimes to competitive democracies is a terribly important problem for polit-

ical scientists. In the past 20 years, this gradual transformation in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Latin America has created the promise of a more peaceful and prosperous world. At the same time, the transition has moved much more slowly in other parts of the world, most notably the Middle East and Africa. Democratization is particularly important in these areas because the continued presence of authoritarian

governments constitutes a great danger to peace. In nations undergoing the transition from one-party rule

to a multi-party democracy, defeating the dominant party is often a key to advancing democratic reforms. In these cases, significant questions concern how voters approach these elections. To what extent are these elections primarily referenda on the dominant party's performance? How willing are voters to support an opposition party with little or no record of governing? What role do policies play in voters' decisions?

Prominent research on voters' behavior during democratic transition in Mexico focuses upon these questions and examines voters' decisionmaking in such a situation. In their analysis of the 1988 and 1991 Mexican elections, Dominguez and McCann (1995,1996: 11) argue for a "two-

step model" of voters' behavior:

Voters decide, first, on their view of the ruling party. For those open to the possibility of being governed by another party, but only for them, there is a second step. They support an opposition party, and they choose

among such parties motivated by policy preferences and social cleavage attachments.

This implies that attitudes toward the dominant party are the most important consideration for voters in such elections and that democratic transition to multi-party democracy occurs only when enough people are dissatisfied with

Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 1 (March 2005): pp. 107-117

the governing party because they otherwise do not even consider supporting an opposition party. Policies are relevant only for voters who reject the dominant party Their

hypothesis is foremost a theory consistent with simple ret-

rospective voting theories (e.g., Key 1966) that evaluations of the incumbent influence voter behavior. They also intro- duce a second condition that voters must meet before con-

sidering the opposition; overcoming qualms about supporting a party without any record to indicate how it would have governed had it been in office (Downs 1957).

Dominguez and McCann's (1995, 1996) studies have

greatly influenced later studies of electoral behavior in Mexico. For instance, Lawson (1997: 19) refers to this model in citing polls showing "many among the 40 percent of Mexico City residents who say that they would never vote for the PRI remain undecided about which opposition party they prefer" to bolster his argument about calculations the

opposition used in determining how best to unseat the PRI. Other studies of Mexican elections build upon their study by examining the role of voter uncertainty about the opposition (e.g., Cinta 1999, Morgenstern and Zechmeister 2001, Poire 1999).

While this research focuses upon electoral politics in Mexico, the theory may apply to other developing multi-

party democracies with dominant parties where voters have an inability to evaluate the opposition's ability to govern. Voters in nations as diverse as Mexico, Taiwan, and Senegal have recently faced this situation during their democratic

development. There are also other newly democratized nations, in Africa and Asia, where new hegemonic parties could arise, extending this model's relevance to other cases in future years. For this reason, closer consideration of this model is valuable for political scientists concerned with democratization.

It is, however, important to note cases where the model does not apply. Voters in elections following the sudden overthrow of an authoritarian government, such as in Romania after the fall of Ceausescu, are not expected to evaluate the former regime as described by the two-step model. Similarly, the model fits less well in a nation, like

107



108POLITICAL RESEARCH QUARTERLY

Zimbabwe, where the opposition has united behind one opposition party. Attitudes toward the dominant party and uncertainty about the opposition may be relevant in these nations, but voters may have an easier time comparing the

competing parties across a wider range of attributes. Finally, Dominguez (1999) writes that other explanations of voter behavior may supersede the two-step model, even prior to the dominant party's defeat, as voters worry less about opposition government and give greater weight to prospective and retrospective performance.

Beyond understanding voting behavior, this theory has ramifications for opposition party strategy in relevant nations. Opposition candidates who do not correctly recognize the central cleavage in the electorate could instead emphasize issues that do not resonate with voters, help the dominant party stay in power, and slow democratic reform. Candidates running on political reform when voters are concerned about other issues may lose winnable elections. Moreover, opposition parties with divergent ideologies who join together to defeat the dominant party could create more uncertainty among voters about how the opposition would govern (Bruhn 2004:132), also helping the dominant party remain in power. With the approach that Dominguez and McCann use in their analysis, it is not possible to determine whether or not voters used their assessments of the dominant party as their primary consideration for voting and evaluate the wisdom of opposition strategies.

Dominguez and McCann test their theory using multinomial logit (MNL), a method for estimating qualitative choice models. But the two-step model is more appropriately tested using nested logit (NL) because NL allows the researcher to test different assumptions about the nature of the relation- ships between the alternatives and does not require the Inde- pendence of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA) assumption.l MNL does not provide a clear way of determining whether or not voters group, or nest, candidates together in a manner consistent with the two-step model's argument, and so our understanding of voters' behavior and the implications for political parties in democratizing nations remain unclear. The theory is sufficiently important and the research has influenced enough other work that it is well worth determining whether or not their conclusions are supported by a model specification that fits their theory more closely.

In this article, I reanalyze the 1988 Mexican data, using nested logit and compare those results to Dominguez and McCann's analysis. I also examine the 1996 Taiwanese presidential election, to probe the extent to which the two-step model may be portable to similar elections elsewhere. From this analysis, I conclude we need to be careful in using the two-step model to describe voter decisionmaking in democratizing nations with dominant parties and multi-party elections. Instead, I argue that voters in these nations vote not only based upon their attitudes toward the dominant party's performance

Canache (1996) also notes, but does not test, this point about Dominguez and McCann's (1996) analysis.

and the opposition's ability to govern, but are also likely to consider the dominant party's public policies. In the concluding section, I offer arguments for why the two-step model may not widely describe voter behavior and discuss the implications for opposition parties' behavior in such nations.

BACKGROUND

The PRI had won every presidential election in Mexico since the 1920s and had not been challenged seriously until the 1988 election. In that election, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, a former governor and son of a past Mexican president, left the PRI to run as an independent after the PRI selected another candidate, Carlos Salinas. The third major candidate in the 1988 election was Manuel Clouthier of the National Action Party (PAN). The PAN had long been virtu-

ally the sole electoral opposition to the PRI and espoused more free-market economic policies than the PRI. In con- trast, Cardenas supported nationalist economic policies, of which the PRI was becoming less supportive. The 1988 election provided voters with a choice of the current government and an opposition party on each side of the governing party on economic issues. Salinas officially won the election with 51 percent of the vote, while Cardenas was credited with 32 percent and Clouthier with 17 percent; Cardenas's supporters questioned the accuracy of these figures, claiming that their candidate had actually won.

Because of the PRI's dominant position in Mexican politics, attitudes toward the PRI are central to the two-step model. Dominguez and McCann (1995: 41; 1996: 105) contend that voters who supported the PRI in previous elections, approved of the president's performance, thought that the PRI was growing stronger as a party, and believed that the other parties could not manage the economy as well as the PRI, were more likely to support the PRI without con-

sidering the opposition. They also argue that voters' previous support for the PAN, the one variable determining support for the PRI with a referent other than the PRI, also influences whether or not voters consider the opposition- essentially assuming that support for the PAN equaled opposition to the PRI. In this view, policies are not important to voters' decisions to support the PRI over the opposition. Voters who approved of the PRI currently and those with a history of supporting the PRI would continue to support the PRI, while voters who had previously supported the PAN were more likely to support one of the opposition parties. Policies are important only for voters who reject the PRI and must decide which opposition party to support.

Because of the parties' alignment on economic issues, many voters who wanted change could select an opposition party that shared their preferences on economic policy. In such a situation, the two-step model of decisionmaking is a plausible means of understanding voting behavior because voters do not necessarily have to sacrifice their preferences on economic policy to satisfy a desire for political change.

There is, however, a question of which preference voters satisfy in the first stage. It is entirely possible that voters

108 POLITICAL RESEARCH QUARTERLY



VOTER BEHAViOR IN DEMOCRATIZING NATIONS 109

could first decide which parties advocated acceptable economic policies and then, if more than one party remained, determine whether they found the status quo acceptable or were willing to risk change. In nations where a two-step model would apply, this question is significant. The two-

step model of voting requires that at least three parties con- test elections, or else voters need only decide in one step whether they prefer the dominant or the opposition party Any situation, however, where the opposition is fragmented probably reflects the presence of a salient policy cleavage beyond one concerning continuity versus change. Where such an issue prevents the opposition from uniting, it is

likely that voters will see the same issue as a reason to support the dominant party if the election of a less preferred opposition party is the alternative.

Dominguez and McCann recognize this fragmentation when they note that the decision in the second step is influenced by the opposition parties' positions. Yet while some voters see toppling the dominant party as important, they may also prefer the dominant party's stand on these issues to the expected policies of a victorious opposition and, as in more mature democracies, compare all parties on this basis. In Mexico, the PRI shared with the PAN some economic

positions on free trade, but it was also closer to Cardenas on the question of state control over some industries. Mexican voters on the left or right, therefore, may first determine that candidates from the PAN or the PRD, respectively, are unac-

ceptable and eliminate them from consideration before

determining whether to support the PRI or the remaining opposition candidate.

The predictions from the 1988 elections in Table 4-16 of

Dominguez and McCann's book (1996: 111) illustrate this. A hypothetical right-wing voter who believes the PRI is

becoming a weaker party is still more likely to support the PRI, with a predicted probability of .31, than Cardenas, with an estimated probability of .16. The same is true with their comparable left-wing voter, who has an estimated

probability of supporting the PRI of .27 and a .06 estimated

probability of supporting Clouthier. While the two-step model can explain this pattern of support, it is also consistent with a simpler model of policy voting.

Given the presence of a salient policy division among the opposition, it is not clear that a two-step process focusing upon the dominant party is the obvious way that voters decide which candidate to support in democratizing nations. Other considerations could influence how voters decide which party to support. Voters, for example, could engage in an elimination-by-aspects (Tversky 1972) decision process where they eliminate one or more parties based upon, as the above example illustrates, the parties' position on economic issues, candidates' competencies on valence issues (e.g., Bruhn 2004), or, alternatively, their viability (e.g., Lau and Redlawsk 2001), until one remains or a smaller number of remaining parties are evaluated using a compensatory decision-rule.

By election time, the parties' chances of winning could easily become a major consideration that voters are more

likely to use than political reform to "weed out" candidates in a first step. Imagine, for instance, that voters start by using a two-step model that focuses upon the dominant party at the first stage. Mexican voters in 1988 who want both

change and free-market economic policies might choose to

reject the PRI in the first stage and choose the PAN in the second stage and have little regret about their choices. If the PAN, however, is seen as likely to finish third as the election

approaches, these voters might reasonably reconsider and decide that economic policies are more important than political change.2 Finally, choosing between three parties may not constitute a difficult enough task that voters need to resort to

non-compensatory decisionmaking processes to whittle down the number of alternatives (Payne 1976). In the next section, I describe how nested logit provides a better way of

testing the two-step model of voters' decisionmaking.

METHODOLOGY

Because NL models have not been used frequently in

political science (for two exceptions, see Hansen 1990, Born 1990), it is worthwhile briefly to compare nested and multinomial logit. Both assume that the probability of an individual choosing one alternative over others is proportional to the utility an individual receives from that alternative, Uj. The utility of each alternative is a function of a vector of covariates, X, and effects parameters, B3, and the errors between the utilities for each option are independent and

identically distributed according to a Type I extreme-value distribution. Recently, Alvarez and Nagler (1995, 1998a, b: 57) have argued that MNL is ill equipped for estimating multicandidate elections because the IIA restriction is often

inappropriate (1998b, 57). The IIA assumption is simply that the ratio of probabilities of selecting one alternative instead of another should be unaffected by the presence of other alternatives in the choice set.

One can see how the IIA assumption is inappropriate for the two-step model. Suppose a voter can choose between the dominant party and a single unified opposition, led by candidate A. Suppose further that the voter's utility for candidate A derives from expected political change if A is elected and is twice that of the dominant party's candidate. The ratio of the probability of choosing candidate A to the

probability of choosing the dominant party is 2 = .66/.33. Now candidate B enters the race, also presenting herself as a viable alternative to the dominant party A voter who is

primarily concerned with electing an opposition candidate that can produce change may receive the same expected

2 While the absolute incidence of strategic voting is often fairly low, it can be quite significant once one considers only the pool of "at risk" voters - those supporting candidates who are unlikely to win. Magaloni and Poire (2004b) write that 40 percent of respondents supporting the PRD in January 2000 ultimately voted for another candidate in the 2000 Mex- ican election. Even after recognizing that some of these defections are related to other factors, it is likely that a sizable number of "at risk" voters chose another candidate for strategic considerations.

VOTER BEHAVIOR IN DEMOCRATIZING NATIONS 109




utility from A and B and, therefore, the probabilities of supporting each candidate are the same. The entry of candidate B into the race, however, has changed the ratio of probabilities of choosing candidate A to the hegemonic party to 1 = .33/.33. The IIA assumption is violated.

Using the same random utility model described above, McFadden (1978) presents NL for situations where individ- uals group alternatives into "nests" of alternatives having some attributes that do not vary in addition to other attributes that do vary across the alternatives within that nest.

Applied to the election example given above, imagine a

person whose utility is affected by factors that vary across all alternatives, like issue positions and candidate traits, as well as things that are the same for alternatives within the same nest, like the value of ending the dominant party's hold on

government. As with MNL, we observe only the choice, not the process by which the choice was arrived. Nested logit, however, provides a basis for evaluating the plausibility of a

specified decision process. In this model, each alternative's utility is a function of

both the attributes that vary for all options, Xjk and attributes that are constant across similar options, Wk, where j represents an alternative and k represents the "nest" in which an alternative is placed. The utility that the individual has for each of the alternatives is expressed as:

Ujk =

PXjk + 'Wk + Ek, (1)

where 13 and y are effects vectors and Ejk is a stochastic component.

Starting from the bottom of the decision tree, the probability that an individual chooses the jkth alternative from all alternatives within the kth subset of alternatives, Pr(j k), is a basic multinomial logit problem. The probability that an individual chooses an option from the kth nest, however, is a function of both the effects of the attributes that do not

vary across sets and the effects of the attributes that vary across all alternatives:

Nk

Pr(k) = exp(y'Wk) E exp(|3'X1) / k=l

Nk N

exp(y'Wk) E exp( 'Xk) k=l j=l1

Nk

= exp(y'Wk + Ik) / exp(y'Wk + Ik) (2) k=l

where Ik is called the inclusive value (IV), which accounts for the portion of an individual's utility for choosing the kth subset of alternatives that derives only from the aspects that vary within the set, not the attributes that do not vary within the nest and is equal to:

N

Ik = In ( exp(3'Xk)) (3) j=l

McFadden (1981) shows that the nested logit model arises when there are similarities between subsets of alternatives and can be modeled to test these similarities by adding a

parameter, Tk, to the inclusive value in equation 2 to produce:

Nk

Pr(k) = exp(y'Wk + TkIk) / E exp(y'Wk + TkIk) k=l

(4)

Nested logit is the appropriate model for testing the two-

step model because the IV parameter provides a test of the

nesting of opposition parties. If Tk equals 1, it is easy to

verify that the nested logit model reduces to MNL and the

nesting structure is rejected. This feature provides a useful basis for evaluating the value of the proposed nesting structure. As MNL is effectively a specialized case of nested logit, where Inclusive Value Parameters are constrained to equal 1, a test of the nesting structure naturally arises from a likelihood ratio test comparing the log-likelihood of an MNL and the nested logit model when the Inclusive Value Para- meter is unconstrained.3 For the two-step argument to be

supported, freeing the Inclusive Value Parameter must significantly improve model fit above the MNL.

ANALYSIS

In this section, I reanalyze the data from Dominguez and McCann's (1996) book and replicate the model for the 1996 Taiwanese presidential election.4 Analysis of the Mexican data allows for an examination of the hypothesis that voters

grouped the opposition parties apart from the PRI, as

implied by the two-step model. Analysis of the Taiwanese data with a similar model allows for an examination of whether or not the two-step model is generalizable to other nascent democracies with one dominant party.

The 1988 Mexican Election

In reanalyzing the 1988 Mexican data, I model the first step as a function of the five variables that Dominguez and McCann (1995: 41) argue influenced voters' decision to support the PRI or an opposition party: voters' attitudes about the PRI, previous support for the PRI and the PAN, presidential approval, and beliefs about the oppositions' ability to manage the economy The critical variable for the nesting hypothesis is the Inclusive Value Parameter. Because the Inclusive Value Parameter in the nested logit model reflects the similarity or

dissimilarity of the alternatives within a nest, the idea of "dis-

similarity" does not make sense when there is only a single alternative within a "degenerate" nest (Heiss 2002). For this reason, I constrain the Inclusive Value Parameter for the PRI to

3 The Inclusive Value Parameter typically falls between 0 and 1, but values outside of this range are also possible. In this case, there is most likely some specification error such that the data do not support the hypothe- sized nesting structure (Maddala 1983: 73).

4 I thank Jorge Dominguez and James McCann for sharing their data with me. I bear full responsibility for the analysis of these data in this paper.

POLITICAL RESEARCH QUARTERLY 110




TABLE 1

1988 MEXICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION (DOMINGUEZ AND MCCANN SPECIFICATION)

Covariates-Top-Level Nest 1982 PRI Supporter .975 (.213) 1982 PAN Supporter -1.74 (.331) PRI getting stronger .396 (.101) Presidential approval .117 (.038) Economy-Other Party -.913 (.118)

Covariates-Bottom-Level Nest

PAN Cardenas

Not previously mobilized Favor capital punishment Increase foreign investment Limit imports Pay foreign debt Retain state industries Political interest Pref. for "strong leaders" Current national economy Future national economy Current personal finances Future personal finances Educational level Age Female Professional class

Working class Union member Population of city/town North South Federal district Church attendance Unrest-Other party Trait: Clouthier Trait: Cardenas Constant

-.171 .089 .175

-.059 .036 .052

-.029 .010 .038

-.244 .005

-.158 -.011 -.005 -.090 -.361 -.194 -.618

.090 -.258 -.706 -.200

.052

.408

.935

.323 -1.934

(.302) (.092) (.105) (.093) (.130) (.111) (.095) (.120) (.126) (.147) (.166) (.091) (.058) (.009) (.208) (.329) (.315) (.267) (.070) (.285) (.353) (.293) (.087) (.189) (.169) (.190) (1.25)

1.000 0.658

TPRI

TNot PRI N Model X260 IV X21

.111

.139

.151 -.048 -.189

.164

.017 -.026

.031 -.099 -.131 -.092

.069 -.010 -.171 -.662

.034 -.267

.027 -.578 -.281

.127 -.097

.285

.312

.711 -1.180

(.288) (.089) (.101) (.089) (.123) (.098) (.090) (.111) (.120) (.132) (.148) (.086) (.054) (.009) (.201) (.303) (.279) (.232) (.066) (.287) (.293) (.280) (.073) (.180) (.282) (.101) (1.01)

(.437)

1359 1434.34

0.57

Note: Entries are nested logit coefficients with standard errors in parentheses. For details about the data and variables, see Dominguez and McCann (1996)..

1. The critical test of the two-step model, then, is a X21 test with the null hypothesis that freeing t for the nest of opposition alternatives does not improve model fit beyond the MNL

assumption that T = 1. Reanalysis of these data (Table 1) does not reject the null hypothesis that the Inclusive Value Parame- ter equals 1, T = .657, X21 = .57, p = .448.5 As specified accord-

5 All nested logit analysis in this paper estimated using STATA 8.0 and the

nlogitrum.ado procedure (Heiss 2002). Results were compared with STATAs nlogit procedure and were found to be similar.

ing to Dominguez and McCann's findings, the nested logit model does not provide support for a two-step model in the 1988 election.

Dominguez and McCann, however, argue that a vote for the PAN in 1982 affects voters' judgment in the first step, and they omit attitudes toward the opposition's ability to address social unrest from the first step. While some people voted for the PAN in 1982 as a vote against the PRI, we cannot assume that voters who generally opposed the PRI voted for the PAN. The utility that voters received from





TABLE 2

1988 MEXICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION (REVISED SPECIFICATION)

Covariates-Top-Level Nest 1982 PRI Supporter .984 (.213) PRI getting stronger .372 (.101) Presidential approval .117 (.038)

Economy-Other Party -.907 (.118) Unrest-Other Party -.340 (.162)

Covariates Bottom-Level Nest

PAN Cardenas

Not previously mobilized Favor capital punishment Increase foreign investment Limit imports Pay foreign debt Retain state industries Political interest Pref. For "strong leaders" Current national economy Future national economy Current personal finances Future personal finances Educational level

Age Female Professional class Working class Union member Population of city/town North South Federal district Church attendance Trait: Clouthier Trait: Cardenas 1982 PAN Supporter Constant

-.030 .098 .173

-.060 -.042

.109 -.005 -.015

.034 -.177 -.062 -.141

.019 -.007 -.104 -.485 -.095 -.498

.065 -.332 -.491 -.075 -.012

.795

.507 1.868

-1.255

(.269) (.087) (.100) (.084) (.137) (.094) (.086) (.108) (.115) (.121) (.142) (.091) (.053) (.008) (.189) (.302) (.276) (.261) (.063) (.286) (.271) (.259) (.075) (.154) (.187) (.401) (1.11)

1.000 0.193

TPRI

TNot PRI N Model X260 IV x2,

-.010 .125 .146

-.055 -.127

.130

.003 -.028

.024 -.150 -.093 -.102

.044 -.006 -.134 -.586 -.028 -.362

.050 -.480 -.421

.003 -.051

.610

.629 1.569

-1.026

(.268) (.085) (.095) (.084) (.110) (.088) (.084) (.104) (.113) (.116) (.135) (.084) (.050) (.008) (.187) (.279) (.261) (.220) (.062) (.282) (.254) (.254) (.065) (.239) (.087) (.431) (.956)

(.364)

1359 1458.94

4.08

Note: Entries are nested logit coefficients with standard errors in parentheses. For details about the data and variables, see Dominguez and McCann (1996).

voting for the PAN in 1982 most likely also reflects aspects that vary across the opposition parties, such as views on economic policies. I would expect, therefore, that previous support for the PAN has a greater effect upon the likelihood of supporting Clouthier than Cardenas. For this reason, I

respecify the model so that previous PAN support influences the choice at the second step. I also respecify the model to make concern about social unrest if the opposition wins a

part of the first step because that variable, like the one for the opposition's ability to manage the economy, remains

constant across the opposition parties. This specification is a clearer test of the argument that voters evaluate the dominant party against the idea of opposition government in the first step before considering differences between the individual opposition parties in the second. With this specification, T = .193, and the test statistic, X21 = 4.08, indicates

support for the nesting structure proposed by the two-step model (Table 2).

The results in Table 2 illustrate why NL is valuable for

examining the two-step model. In the 1988 Mexican election,

I -I





there is evidence for Dominguez and McCann's argument that voters evaluated the opposition parties apart from the PRI, but their conclusions concerning the basis of this group- ing were not completely accurate. Instead, the evidence suggests that past support for the opposition was not simply a vote against the PRI. Holding the other variables at their means, a PAN supporter in 1982 had a .60 probability of

supporting the PAN in 1988, as compared with a .25 probability of supporting Cardenas. Dominguez and McCann are correct to argue that past opposition to the PRI was an

important determinant of voting for an opposition party in 1988, but the fact that PAN voters were most likely to stick with the PAN rather than go over to Cardenas implies that there was strong policy-based support for the PAN in both 1982 and 1988. In short, these voters were not just free

agents looking to support any opposition candidate. These results provide some support for the two-step

model, but we also need to evaluate what else the nested

logit estimates tell us about Mexican voters' behavior in the 1988 election. Dominguez and McCann (1996:106) conclude, based upon the absence of statistically significant rela-

tionships between the policy attitudes and the probability of

voting for either opposition candidate, that "for the most part the 1988 election was not about issues." While none of the coefficients on the issues variables in Table 2 are statistically significant at p < .05, Dominguez and McCann demonstrate in their Table 3-7 that there are some strong inter-correla- tions between voters' attitudes on different economic issues (1996: 65). It makes sense, therefore, to look not only at the statistical significance of individual coefficients, but also the

joint effect of the economic issues. Carrying out a likelihood ratio test to compare the unrestricted model presented in Table 2 and a model where the economic issue parameters are constrained to 0 produces a X28 value of 19.47, well above the critical value (oa = .05) of 15.51.6

As with MNL, the substantive effects of NL can only be determined by generating predicted probabilities from the effects coefficients. For determining these probabilities, I hold all other variables at their means and simulate two different voters: one with the PAN'S support for encouraging foreign investment, support for paying Mexico's debt, opposition to limiting imports, and opposition to keeping state industries and another with the Cardenas's opposing views on these issues. A hypothetical voter with PAN positions on these issues had a .57 probability of voting for Salinas, a .26 probability of voting for Clouthier, and a .17 probability of

voting for Cardenas, while the respective probabilities for the voter with Cardenas's positions on these issues are .49

6 While the relationship between issues and support for the candidates could be the result of voter projection, other analysis (available with data for replicating the analysis in this paper) demonstrates that exogenous variables, such as education, class, and sex are significantly associated with attitudes on policies, such as maintaining state control of some industries, and remain so even after controlling for the, often weak, effects of voters' evaluations of candidates' traits. This is not a perfect test for exogeneity, but it suggests that projection does not provide a strong explanation for the relationship between policies and vote.

for Salinas, .09 for Clouthier, and .42 for Cardenas.

Dominguez and McCann are correct to note that issues influenced support for the opposition candidates, as one

might expect given their greatly divergent views, but issues also influenced voters' decisions in deciding whether or not to support the PRI. Voters who shared the PAN's views on economic issues had a .08 higher probability of supporting a candidate, Salinas, who was closer to their beliefs on economic policy than were voters who shared Cardenas's views on economic policy.

Before concluding this section, we should consider the role that policies played in voters' decisions. Some observers have questioned Mexican voters' ability to distinguish the

parties on economic policies (Moreno 1999: 142-47). More recent research confirms this point, but also recognizes that there are issues on which the Mexican public can distin-

guish the parties (Magaloni and Poire 2004a). With the 1988 data, it is difficult to evaluate this matter because these data do not ask about candidate placements. There is further difficulty in evaluating the exact role that economic

policies played in voters' decisions because the measures of voters' policy preferences are fairly blunt. The questions ask

respondents only to express support for one side or another of each issue. It is, therefore, difficult to determine the extent to which voters supported their preferred candidates because of a desire to have the parties adopt particular positions on these issues or because they wanted the government to move policy in a general direction. Nonetheless, the results from the model in Table 2 support the argument that

prospective policy issues influenced upon voters' decisions to support the dominant PRI.

THE 1996 TAIWANESE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

A second test of the two-step model comes from the 1996 Presidential election in Taiwan. The Taiwanese election provides a very similar case to the Mexican election. From 1949 to 1996, the Nationalist Party (KMT) ruled the island of Taiwan, often with little tolerance for political opposition. But in 1996, the KMT allowed the first competitive elections for the presidency. In this election, the KMT candidate, Lee

Teng-hui, won the election with 54 percent of the vote. Lee was challenged by the rival Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) Peng Ming-min, who received 21 percent of the vote, Lin Yang-kang, an independent candidate who was endorsed

by the New Party (NP), got 15 percent, and another inde-

pendent, Chen Li-an, who collected 10 percent of the vote. Taiwanese politics have several similarities to the Mexi-

can politics that make it a good case for comparison. The KMT could claim that its leadership had made the island

prosperous and protected it from aggression from the mainland. While the mainland Communist government sug- gested that Lee's victory could destabilize relations between the two countries, voters might also be quite uncertain about the consequences of an opposition victory upon the

economy and national security. A voter favoring the election of an opposition president would have to do so having some





- TABLE 3

1996 TAIWANESE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Covariates-Top-Level Nest KMT Identification .970 (.213) KMT Assembly Vote 1.09 (.417) National Identity-Other Party -.591 (.516)

Covariates-Bottom-Level Nest

Chen Peng (DPP) Lin(NP)

Female 1.661 (.867) .251 (.615) .763 (.462) Age -.226 (.269) -.039 (.228) -.000 (.226) Education Level .094 (.259) .221 (.201) .418 (.247) Personal Finances -.131 (.396) .290 (.313) -.240 (.346) National Economy .067 (.302) .140 (.267) .424 (.370) Taipei -.232 (.740) .655 (.668) .092 (.621) Taiwanese .423 (.619) 1.185 (.664) -.161 (.901) Chinese .212 (.688) -.076 (.713) -.175 (.716) National Identity .125 (.144) .013 (.124) .431 (.220) Social Welfare Policy .047 (.112) .016 (.103) .012 (.109) Chen's Traits 1.317 (.430) .795 (.220) .682 (.263) Peng's Traits .911 (.497) 1.650 (.358) .791 (.564) Lin's Traits .590 (.613) .872 (.430) 1.543 (.363) Constant -5.052 (2.05) -5.742 (1.84) -7.941 (3.01)

TKMT 1.000

Not KMT 0.545 (.458)

N 471 Model X246 1008.33 IV X2 0.75

Note: Entries are nested logit coefficients with standard errors in parentheses. Data come from the Election Study Center at National Chengchi University

sense of certainty that such a victory would not create great political or economic disorder.

The other significant similarity with Mexico is that the opposition was split over the central policy issue, Taiwanese national identity (tongdu). The KMT was seen a favoring a status quo position that put off the question of reunification until the future. Among the opposition, the DPP's candidate, Peng Ming-min was perceived as favoring the island's independence from China. On the other side, two independent candidates, Lin Yang-kang and Chen Li-an, were seen as favoring reunification with the mainland. Taiwanese voters in 1996, therefore, were in the same position as Mexican voters. Voters who wanted change could find an opposition party whose views were close to theirs on the national identity issue. A two-step voting process, therefore, should be perfectly plausible in this election if the theory is generalizable to other democratizing nations.

The data that I use for this analysis come from a face-to- face survey of 1396 respondents conducted by the National Chengchi University during the 1996 election. The variables available for estimating the top-level nest, the decision whether or not to support the KMT, differ from those that Dominguez and McCann use, but they should be reasonable proxies. In place of voters' estimates of the KMT's strength, I use a variable measuring identification with the KMT.

Similarly, the proxy for previous opposition support is the voters' party preference in the concurrent election for the constitutional assembly. Finally, the opposition's ability to

govern on the national identity issue is determined by whether voters named the KMT or an opposition party as the party best able to handle this issue. While this measure differs from Dominguez and McCann's, the question elicits information from voters similar to the one that Dominguez and McCann use.

The primary policy variables in the lower-level nest are

respondents' policy attitudes, both measured on 11-point scales. The national identity question reflects respondents' views on reunification, where high scores represent a desire for reunification, lower ones support for independence. Another variable concerns social welfare policy, where high scores reflect support for free market policies and lower ones represent support for social spending programs. In addition to the issue variables, there are a series of demo-

graphic controls for sex, age, education, income, residence in Taipei, and self-identification as a Taiwanese or as a main- lander (as compared with a baseline of dual identity).

The results in Table 3 do not provide support for a two-step model in the 1996 Taiwan presidential election. Attitudes about the KMT and the opposition's ability to manage the issue of national identity all influenced voters' support for the KMT,





but T = .545, with a X2 = 0.75, indicating that the null

hypothesis that t = 1 cannot be rejected and that the hypoth- esized similarity of opposition parties is not supported. None of the Hausman-McFadden tests of IIA can reject the null

hypothesis independence between the candidates. As with the 1988 Mexican elections, there is no evidence

that general retrospective assessments of the economy influenced voters' decisions in the 1996 Taiwanese election. There is, however, some evidence that the cleavage over the national identity issue was relevant. The national identity issue had a strong direct effect, significant at p = .05, upon voters' support for Lin; although, the total effect is trivial as voters more likely to support reunification also tended to have more positive views of the KMT. If we consider, however, the effect of attitudes on the national identity issue

upon both evaluations of the candidates as well as the KMT, we can determine that respondents with the DPP's position, as determined by respondents' mean placement of the DPP, had a .09 higher probability of supporting Peng and a .04 lower probability of supporting Lee, compared with respondents who took the KMT's position once the effect of national identity upon attitudes toward the KMT and the candidates is factored in. Furthermore, voters with the DPP's position had almost zero probability of supporting the other two opposition candidates.

Finally, imputed preference orderings from feeling ther- mometer scores of the three major parties in Taiwan cast more doubt upon the two-step argument. Of the 453 respondents without a clear first-preference for the KMT, only 66, or 14.5 percent, had the KMT as a clear third preference behind the DPP and the NP The remaining respondents either placed the KMT second or tied for first or second with one of the opposition parties. In short, few voters expressed a clear preference for the opposition over the KMT. While these last results do not mean that voters with equal preference for the KMT and an opposition party were just as likely to vote for the KMT as the opposition, the

pattern is certainly more consistent with a profile of preferences based upon respondents' attitudes toward the parties' positions on national identity than one based upon attitudes toward dominant party rule.

Between these results, it appears as though voters were divided by two cleavages in the 1996 election: one that separated KMT supporters from the other parties, and gave it an advantage over candidates advocating positions on national identity that were similar to the KMT's, and one that separated the DPP from the other parties on the basis of national identity Again, attitudes toward the dominant party were important, but the policy-based cleavage also appears to be quite important. Moreover, these results raise a question of whether or not the two-step model that Dominguez and McCann found in Mexico in 1988 represents an anomaly. Given the similarities in the electoral con- text, it would have been reasonable to observe the two-step model describe voters' behavior in Taiwan's election if the model were generalizable to other democratizing nations with a dominant party and multi-party elections. In the

concluding section, I will discuss some directions that

might help to resolve this question.

CONCLUSION

Overall, the results raise questions about a two-step model of voter decisionmaking in democratizing nations with multi-party elections. While additional testing of voters'

decisionmaking in such elections is essential for understand-

ing the democratization process, the above analysis provides clear evidence that elections in these nations are more than mere referenda on the ruling party The importance of the dominant party as a focal point for voters' behavior is com-

pelling, and others (e.g., Morgenstern and Zechmeister 2001) have found support for the role of uncertainty These elements need to remain as part of future exploration of voters' behavior in these nations, but the way in which voters use these elements needs more study At the same time, there is support for the argument that voters in democratizing nations with dominant parties are not concerned solely with

questions of political change, but also consider policies when

voting. The above analysis shows that policy preferences influenced voters' support for both the PRI and the KMT. The fact that these effects may be weaker than in more mature democracies does not remove the fact that cleavages based upon certain salient issues partly motivate voters' attitudes toward the incumbent party

In light of these results, some reconsideration of the

strategies that the opposition uses to defeat a dominant

party is warranted. A "unified coalition" strategy may not be

optimal, even though it could remove the problem among the opposition of strategic coordination. In both Mexico and Taiwan, the presence of two significant opposition candidates in 2000 did not prevent the dominant party's defeat. In both instances, the opposition won not by providing voters with a single candidate, but with candidates repre- senting multiple and conflicting policy preferences. If voters are also concerned with policies, the "unified front" strategy may make it harder for the opposition to win as voters are less able to evaluate what policies a successful, but ideolog- ically incompatible, opposition would enact. The resulting uncertainty or presence of disliked candidates in the coalition may lead some voters to stick with the dominant party. By presenting multiple alternatives, voters may have more

certainty about the policies that a successful opposition party will pursue, especially when representatives of those

parties have held sub-national offices before being elected

president, as had the victorious Vicente Fox (PAN) and Chen Shui-bian (DPP).

A "unified front" strategy may also backfire by making the dominant party the central consideration of the election, rather than issues. The dominant party may become weaker more quickly as more voters find policy justification to defect from the dominant party An opposition party whose sole pur- pose is to drive the dominant party out of power may have dif-

ficulty attracting support for uncertain policies, but may also lead the governing party to solidify their base for staying in





power. If the central focus of an election is which set of elites holds power, it easier for the dominant party to craft distributive policies that keep all factions within the party satisfied. If faced with a policy-based opposition, however, elites within the party may take different positions to address the opposition, creating fissures that are less amenable to distributive redress and, consequently, may weaken the dominant party. Both the PRI and KMT were undoubtedly hurt by defections that led to the formation of competing parties, the PRD in Mexico and the People First Party in Taiwan, formed after former KMT governor James Soong broke from the party in 2000. While policy disputes may not have been the sole cause of both defections, both candidates took up positions that reflected reactions to their parties moving toward the opposition's location on salient policy dimensions, leaving the party vulnerable to the old opposition. If voters are concerned primarily with these issues, the dominant party may become

squeezed out from each side. There are a number of directions for work to proceed.

First, as persuasive as Dominguez and McCann's argument is, they have tested the model only in two elections in one nation and my analysis adds only one more election. The 1988 Mexican presidential election may be exceptional. Scholars, therefore, should be alert to other nations where the potential exists to evaluate the two-step model better. Related to this point, scholars must be careful where they attempt to apply this model. In results available upon request, my replication of Dominguez and McCann's analysis of the 1991 election indicates that a two-step model does not fit sub-national contests that are mostly two-party affairs (Klesner 2004: 95).

Third, measures of these components, as Cinta (1999) and Morgenstern and Zechmeister (2001) argue, must consider the possibility of different levels of uncertainty for each

opposition party as well as measures of all concepts that are, to the extent possible, exogenous to voters' decisions. Both of these considerations demand that election and voting behavior scholars in other nations work together to create comparable measures, so that differences in results cannot be tied to dissimilar measures.

Finally, some attention should be paid to the role that local government plays in democratization. If uncertainty about the opposition's ability to govern is important, then if some opposition parties have established a track record at local levels, risk-averse voters may be less reluctant to support some opposition parties, but not others. This last point may be particularly important in guiding nations through the democratization process because it may highlight the

importance of building competitive parties first at the local level, rather than creating nationally-based parties around charismatic figures.

REFERENCES

Alvarez, R. Michael, and Jonathan Nagler. 1995. "Economics, Issues, and the Perot Candidacy: Voter Choice in the 1992 Pres- idential Election." American Journal of Political Science 39 (3):714-44.

. 1998a. "Economics, Entitlements, and Social Issues: Voter

Choice in the1996 Presidential Election." American Journal of Political Science 42 (4):1349-63.

.1998b. "When Politics and Models Collide: Estimating Models of Multiparty Elections." American Journal of Political Science 42 (1): 55-96.

Born, Richard. 1990. "Surge and Decline, Negative Voting, and the Midterm Loss Phenomenon: A Simultaneous Choice Analysis." American Journal of Political Science 34 (3): 615-45.

Bruhn, Kathleen. 2004. "The Making of the Mexican President, 2000: Parties, Candidates, and Campaign Strategy." In Jorge I.

Dominguez and Chappell Lawson, eds., Mexico's Pivotal Demo- cratic Election: Candidates, Voters, and the Presidential Campaign of 2000. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Canache, Damarys. 1996. "Review of Democratizing Mexico." Public Opinion Quarterly 60 (4): 657-60. Book Review.

Cinta, Alberto. 1999. "Uncertainty and Electoral Behavior in Mexico in the 1997 Congressional Elections." In Jorge I.

Dominguez and Alejandro Poire, eds., Toward Mexico's Democ- ratization: Parties, Campaigns, Elections, and Public Opinion, pp. 174-202. New York: Routledge.

Dominguez, Jorge I. 1999. "The Transformation of Mexico's Elec- toral and Party Systems, 1988-97: An Introduction." In Jorge I.

Dominguez and Alejandro Poire, eds., Toward Mexico's Democ- ratization: Parties, Campaigns, Elections, and Public Opinion, pp. 1-23. New York: Routledge.

Dominguez, Jorge I. and James A. McCann. 1995. "Shaping Mexico's Electoral Arena: The Construction of Partisan Cleav-

ages in the 1988 and 1991 National Elections." American Polit- ical Science Review 89 (1): 34-48. _ . 1996. Democratizing Mexico: Public Opinion and Electoral

Choices. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Downs, Anthony 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New

York: Harper and Row. Hansen, Wendy L. 1990. "The International Trade Commission

and the Politics of Protectionism." American Political Science Review 84 (1): 21-46.

Heiss, Florian. 2002. "Sructural Choice Analysis with Nested Logit Models." University of Mannheim, MEA typescript.

Key, V O., Jr. 1966. The Responsible Electorate: Rationality in Presi- dential Voting, 1936-1960. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Klesner, Joseph L. 2004. "The Structure of the Mexican Electorate: Social, Attitudinal, and Partisan Bases of Vicente Fox's Victory" In Jorge I. Dominguez and Chappell Lawson, eds., Mexico's Piv- otal Democratic Election: Candidates, Voters, and the Presidential

Campaign of 2000. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Lau, Richard R., and David P Redlawsk. 2001. "Advantages and

Disadvantages of Cognitive Heuristics in Political Decision

Making." American Journal of Political Science 45 (4): 951-71. Lawson, Chappell. 1997. "The Elections of 1997." Journal of

Democracy 8 (4): 13-27. Maddala, G. S. 1983. Limited-Dependent and Qualitative Variables in

Econometrics. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

Magaloni, Beatriz, and Alejandro Poire. 2004a. "The Issues, the Vote, and the Mandate for Change. In Jorge I. Dominguez and

Chappell Lawson, eds., Mexico's Pivotal Democratic Election: Candidates, Voters, and the Presidential Campaign of 2000. Stan- ford, CA: Stanford University Press. _ . 2004b. Strategic Coordination in the 2000 Mexican Presi- dential Race. InJorge I. Dominguez and Chappell Lawson, eds., Mexico's Pivotal Democratic Election: Candidates, Voters, and the




VOTER BEHAVIOR IN DEMOCRATIZING NATIONS

Presidential Campaign of 2000. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univer-

sity Press. McFadden, Daniel L. 1978. "Modelling the Choice of Residential

Location." In A. Karlqvist, ed., Spatial Interaction Theory and Residential Location, pp. 75-96. Amsterdam: North Holland.

1981. "Econometric Models of Probabilistic Choice." In C. F Manski and D. L. McFadden, eds., Structural Analysis of Dis- crete Data and Econometric Applicatio, pp. 198-272. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Moreno, Alejandro. 1999. Political Cleavages: Issues, Parties, and the Consolidation of Democracy. Boulder, CO: Westview.

Morgenstern, Scott, and Elizabeth Zechmeister. 2001. "Better the Devil You Know than the Saint You Don't: Risk Propensity and Vote Choice in Mexico." Journal of Politics 63 (1): 93-119.

Payne, John W 1976. "Task Complexity and Contingent Processing in Decision Making: An Information Search and Protocol Analy- sis." Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 366-87.

Poire, Alejandro. 1999. "Retrospective Voting, Partisanship, and

Loyalty in Presidential Elections: 1994." In Jorge I. Dominguez and Alejandro Poire, eds., Toward Mexico's Democratization: Par- ties, Campaigns, Elections, and Public Opinion, pp. 24-56. New York: Routledge.

Tversky, Amos. 1972. "Elimination by Aspects: A Theory of Choice." Psychological Review 281-99.

Received: June 22, 2004

Accepted for Publication: August 21, 2004

[email protected]

117



Paolino 2005

Documents

Transcript of Paolino 2005