Political Research Quarterly

 

Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here to read the PRQ 2007 Annual Reports

SAGETRACK

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
This Article
Right arrow Abstract Freely available
Right arrow Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Bèlanger, E.
Right arrow Articles by Tiberj, V.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?
Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 59, No. 4, 503-515 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/106591290605900401

Party, Ideology, and Vote Intentions: Dynamics from the 2002 French Electoral Panel

Èric Bèlanger

McGill UNIVERSITY

Michael S. Lewis-Beck

University of Iowa

Jean Chiche

Institut d’Ètudes Politiques de Paris

Vincent Tiberj

Institut d’Ètudes Politiques de Paris

The debate over the relative importance of ideology versus party for vote choice in France is enduring. Resolution of the debate would have much value, for the light shed on sources of stability and change in multiparty electoral systems generally. The main reason the debate continues is that previous studies examining that question have been plagued by difficulties pertaining to variable measurement, model specification, election type, and research design. We address these problems and provide new evidence from the 2002 French Electoral Panel. Most notably, these data allow stronger causal inference because party identification and ideological identification are both measured in the first wave of the survey, that is, before the declaration of vote actually occurs. We estimate a multi-equation model of first-round legislative vote intention—as measured in the second wave of the panel—using two-stage least squares, ordered logit, as well as binomial and multinomial logit techniques. The results indicate that ideological identification systematically outweighs party identification in shaping the French voter’s choice.

References

  • Andersen, Robert, and Jocelyn A. J. Evans. 2003. "Values, Cleavages and Party Choice in France, 1988-1995". French Politics 1: 83-114.[CrossRef]
  • Berry, William D. 1984. Nonrecursive Causal Models. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
  • Borooah, Vani Kant. 2002. Logit and Probit: Ordered and Multinomial Models. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
  • Boy, Daniel, and Nonna Mayer. 1993. "The Changing French Voter". In Daniel Boy and Nonna Mayer, eds., The French Voter Decides, pp. 167-184. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
  • Budge, Ian, Ivor Crewe, and Dennis Farlie, eds. 1976. Party Identification and Beyond: Representations of Voting and Party Competition. London: Wiley.
  • Cautrès, Bruno, and Anne Jadot. 2004. "Panel, mode d’emploi". In Bruno Cautrès and Nonna Mayer, eds., Le nouveau dèsordre èlectoral: les leçons du 21 avril 2002, pp. 369-89. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.
  • Cautrès, Bruno, Nonna Mayer, and Annie-Claude Salomon. 2003. "The French Electoral Panel 2002". French Politics 1: 243-245.[CrossRef]
  • Chiche, Jean, Florence Haegel, and Vincent Tiberj. 2004. "Èrosion et mobilitè partisanes". In Bruno Cautrès and Nonna Mayer, eds., Le nouveau dèsordre èlectoral: les leçons du 21 avril 2002, pp. 255-77. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.
  • Chiche, Jean, Brigitte Le Roux, Pascal Perrineau, and Henry Rouanet. 2000. "L’espace politique des èlecteurs français à la fin des annèes 1990". Revue française de science politique 50: 463-87.
  • Converse, Philip E., and Roy Pierce. 1986. Political Representation in France, Cambridge, MA: Belknap-Harvard University Press.
  • Dalton, Russell J., Scott Flanagan, and Paul Allen Beck, eds. 1984. Electoral Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies: Realignment or Dealignment? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  • Elgie, Robert. 1996. "The Institutional Logics of Presidential Elections". In Robert Elgie, ed., Electing the French President: The 1995 Presidential Election, pp. 51-72. New York: St. Martin.
  • Evans, Jocelyn A. J. 2004. "Ideology and Party Identification: A Normalisation of French Voting Anchors?" In Michael S. LewisBeck, ed., The French Voter: Before and After the 2002 Elections, pp. 47-73. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Evans, Jocelyn A. J., and Nonna Mayer. 2005. "Electorates, New Cleavages and Social Structures". In Alistair Cole, Patrick Le Galès and Jonah Levy, eds., Developments in French Politics 3, pp. 35-53. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Finkel, Steven E. 1995. Causal Analysis with Panel Data. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
  • Fiorina, Morris P. 1981. Retrospective Voting in American National Elections. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
  • Fleury, Christopher J., and Michael S. Lewis-Beck. 1993. "Anchoring the French Voter: Ideology versus Party". Journal of Politics 55: 1100-1109.[CrossRef]
  • Franklin, Mark N., Thomas T. Mackie, and Henry Valen, eds. 1992. Electoral Change: Responses to Evolving Social and Attitudinal Structures in Western Countries, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
  • Goguel, François. 1968. "Les èlections lègislatives des 23 et 30 juin 1968". Revue française de science politique 18: 837-858.
  • Grunberg, Gèrard, and Ètienne Schweisguth. 1997. "Vers une tripartition de l’espace politique". In Daniel Boy and Nonna Mayer, eds., L’èlecteur a ses raisons, pp. 179-218. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.
  • Gschwend, Thomas, and Dirk Leuffen. 2005. "Divided We Stand—Unified We Govern? Cohabitation and Regime Voting in the 2002 French Elections". British Journal of Political Science 35: 691-712.[CrossRef]
  • Haegel, Florence. 1990. "Le lien partisan". In Daniel Boy and Nonna Mayer, eds., L’èlecteur français en questions, pp. 153-74. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.
  • Knapp, Andrew. 2004. Parties and the Party System in France: A Disconnected Democracy? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Lewis-Beck, Michael S. 1996. "Cross-National Election Surveys: A French Pre-Test," Electoral Studies 15: 513-528.[CrossRef]
  • Lewis-Beck, Michael S. 2004. "French Election Theories and the 2002 Results: An Introduction". In Michael S. Lewis-Beck, ed., The French Voter: Before and After the 2002 Elections, pp. 1-11. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Lewis-Beck, Michael S., and Kevin Chlarson. 2002. "Party, Ideology, Institutions and the 1995 French Presidential Election". British Journal of Political Science 32: 489-512.[CrossRef]
  • Lewis-Beck, Michael S., and Glenn E. Mitchell, II. 1993. "French Electoral Theory: The National Front Test". Electoral Studies 12: 112-127.[CrossRef]
  • Lewis-Beck, Michael S., and Andrew Skalaban. 1992. "France". In Mark N. Franklin, Thomas T. Mackie, and Henry Valen, eds., Electoral Change: Responses to Evolving Social and Attitudinal Structures in Western Countries, pp. 167-178. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
  • Mayer, Nonna. 1997. "Introduction". In Daniel Boy and Nonna Mayer, eds., L’èlecteur a ses raisons, pp. 11-24. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.
  • Mayer, Nonna, and Vincent Tiberj. 2004. "Do Issues Matter? Law and Order in the 2002 French Presidential Election" In Michael S. Lewis-Beck, ed., The French Voter: Before and After the 2002 Elections, pp. 33-46. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Percheron, Annick. 1977. "Ideological Proximity among French Children: Problems of Definition and Measurement". European Journal of Political Research 5: 53-81.[CrossRef]
  • Pierce, Roy. 1995. Choosing the Chief: Presidential Elections in France and the United States. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
  • Swyngedouw, Marc, Daniel Boy, and Nonna Mayer. 2000. "Mesure de la volatilitè èlectorale en France (1993-1997)". Revue française de science politique 50: 489-514.
  • Woolridge, Jeffrey M. 2006. Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach, 3rd ed., Mason, OH: Thomson South-Western.

Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?



This Article
Right arrow Abstract Freely available
Right arrow Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Bèlanger, E.
Right arrow Articles by Tiberj, V.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?