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![handle is hein.amenin/aeiaard0001 and id is 1 raw text is:
Strategic Voting Under Proportional
Representation: A Model with
Evidence from the Netherlands
By Tim Ganser and Stan Veuger
January 2018
We propose a model of voter decision-making in proportional representation systems: Strategic
voters construct expectations of coalitions and policy outcomes based on expected seat
distributions and vote to maximize their expected utility from the implemented policy. We
examine the predictions of our model using data from the Netherlands and successfully
predict the voting behavior of significant numbers of voters. Two main takeaways follow: At
least to some extent, voters seem to take complex coalition considerations into account, and
narrowly defined strategic voting might matter less in proportional representation systems
than in plurality systems.
Strategic voting' has been an important topic in
psephology as researchers try to understand the
ways in which voters decide how to cast their votes.
Do they simply vote for their preferred party?
Or do they target electoral outcomes and derive
their vote in a more strategic manner? There is
no shortage of research documenting that strategic
voting figures prominently across electoral systems.
Examining 32 elections in 32 countries, Sara Hobolt
and Jeffrey Karp (2010) find that, on average, sincere
voting can at best account for 85 percent of votes
cast, leaving ample room for strategic considerations
to play an important role.2
Ultimately, however, what we as researchers want
to understand about strategic voting is: How does
it work? How do strategic voters decide whom to
cast their vote for? That is, we want to get inside
the black box and understand the decision-making
process. This is a much easier undertaking in a
plurality system than it is in a proportional
representation (PR) system. As early as 1869, Henry
Droop, an English proponent of PR and the inventor
of the Droop quota,3 described the decision-making
process in pointing out the susceptibility of plurality
systems to strategic voting:
'We follow Timothy Feddersen's (2oo8) definition of strategic voting in The NewPalgrave Dictionary of Economics as cast[ing]
a ballot that maximizcs Lthe strategic voter's] expected payoff from voting in the clection.
2 Note that it is well-nigh impossible to bound the extent of strategic voting without understanding the process. Rcsearchers will
bc left with an estimate of the upper bound of sinccrc voting if they simply examine whether voters cast a vote for the party whosc
policy position they like best.
3 The Droop quota is one of the quotas used to allocate scats in elections using the single transferable vote method.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.amenin/aeiaard0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)