F2 Structural fundamentals

Question 1

What is fundamentals?

Answer 1

Structural economic or political variables based on historical prediction power.

Question 2

What is the Michigan model and what are the different levels? Draw it

Answer 2

From the American Voter. Also known as the funnel of causality.

Sociodemographic
Party-identification
Issues
Campaign
Vote choice

Party-identification is shaped by social structures early on. It’s stabil but not deterministic (mostly long-term but also short-term perspectives).

Question 3

What is polarization?

Answer 3

From the Bitter End.

Division in political attitudes into opposing extremes.

Question 4

What is calcification?

Answer 4

From the Bitter End.

The political environment is locked in with little to no movement from election to election.

Question 5

What is the difference between long-term tectonics shifts and short-term shocks?

Question 6

What is party identification and how does it evolve over time?

Answer 6

From the Bitter End.

Loyalty to a particular political party. Relatively stable over time.

Question 7

What is partisanhip?

Answer 7

From the Bitter End.

Strong allegiance to one’s political party (often leading to biased decision-making)

Question 8

What is a partisan?

Answer 8

From the Bitter End.

A person who strongly supports on political party / policies

Question 9

What is partisan parity

Answer 9

From the Bitter End.

A situation in which support for two or more political parties is roughly equal, creating balance in vot-er preferences or political representation (e.g. a swing state)

Question 10

Explain central elements of economic voting

Answer 10

From the American Voter:

Voters are rational and maximize utility. Two categories:

(1) Economic voting (hard): Prospective/retrospective (time)
Socio tropic/ego tropic (type of utility)
Objective/subjective (perspective)

(2) Issue voting (soft)
Proximity models (distance from candidate)

Question 11

What type of voter is fundamentals especially important for?

Answer 11

Swing voters as they are not locked in by the Michigan model. They do not behave like partisan voters.

Question 12

Is the median voter theory relevant in the US?

Answer 12

Not a lot of evidence. Especially in primaries can candidate tak positions far from the median voter.

Question 13

What is the relation between the Michigan model and proximity models?

Answer 13

They disagree

Question 14

What is group membership all about?

Answer 14

Collective identity and aggregated rational cost/benefit calculations of group.

Question 15

What are two major realignments?

Answer 15

The new deal (working class –> dem)
Southern strategy of GOP (south dem –> GOP)

Question 16

What is a wedge issue?

Answer 16

An issue that creates division within a political party (e.g. abortion and GOP)

Question 17

What is negative polarization?

Answer 17

Political preferences and actions are driven more by opposition toward the opposing party or group than by positive feelings or support for their own party or group.

Rating of the opposite party has fallen drastically the past 40 years (48 to 19 pct.). Rating of own party. Stable around 70 pct.

Question 18

What is affective polarization?

Answer 18

Individuals from opposing political parties develop strong negative feelings toward one another, not necessarily based on substantive policy disagreements, but rather on partisan or group identity.

Question 19

What is a consequence of negative polarization?

Answer 19

Republicans would rather choose Trump than a Democrat even though the strongly disagree (football team analogy).

Question 20

What is the great sorting?

Answer 20

Americans live more and more next to likeminded. Areas are very red or very blue – you don’t meet people from the other party in your neighborhood

Question 21

What does Erikson & Wlezien (2008) believe about economic variables?

Answer 21

Economic voting is important when voters decide on a candidate

Question 22

What is perception of economic?

Answer 22

From Brady et al., 2022

Whether the economy is evaluated positively depends on party-identification (motivated reasoning).

There is a growing partisan divide in economic perceptions

Question 23

Why is economic indicators superior to polls?

Answer 23

Swing voters hasn’t decided early on and might decide latter based on economic factors.

Historically economic factors are better than early polls.

Low response rates for polls

Question 24

What is a key challenge when using fundamentals?

Answer 24

They assume the future behave like the past.

Economic voting was a better predictor 30-40 years ago. Recent calcification affects perception of all fundamentals

Question 25

What does Brady et al. (2022) show?

Answer 25

Democrats and republican evaluate the economy based on whether they have a president in the White House or not.

Question 26

What does calcification lead to?

Answer 26

Heavier focus on the base in GOP and dem.
Partisan views on structural fundamentals.