ECONOMY

32 voters, candidates, and parties
generally. Emerging to the response to these four problems, then, is a more comprehensive
theory of politics.
1 Modeling Performance and Policy
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An early critique of the spatial model came from social psychologist Donald Stokes
(1963). Stokes argued that ideological issues matter relatively little to people compared
to assessments of the attributes of the candidates or the performance of the
incumbent administration. All voters may want more economic growth or more
spending on local projects. They may want lower crime and traffic safety.Allmay
desire international peace, democracy, and national unity. All other things being
equal, voters may want someone whom they know and trust, who is honest, or who
is more competent in the administration of government. These are examples of what
Stokes termed valence issues—matters on which voters agree on the general objective
on which they judge, not the candidates’ promises or policies but their personal
attributes or performance in office.
Evidence of such factors abounds in empirical research on elections and the
economy and on the psychology of voting. Voters reward incumbent presidents for
good times and punish them for bad times. 4 Another sort of valence advantage is a
politician’s personal vote. Incumbent politicians in the United States have significant
personal votes derived from the things they have done for constituents, their higher
levels of name recognition, and simply the selection process. 5 Also, the governing
party in a parliamentary system may expect to have an electoral advantage in the
general election. The sitting prime minister calls elections, and elections are called
strategically so that the circumstances of the election are most favorable to the sitting
government. 6
Valence issues are easily incorporated into the simple spatial model. For simplicity
of exposition, I will assume that the valence term captures the competence of the
candidate or party, which in turn translates into better economic performance. A
candidate’s competence is a fixed attribute; it is not something the candidate can
maximize or alter during a campaign. A positive valence means that this candidate
has better than average competence in governing. Voters judge candidates not only
on the basis of their policy promises, but also on the basis of their competence. If
the candidates promise identical policies, then all voters will choose the candidate
with the higher valence term. The differential between candidates’ valence attributes
is termed their valence advantage (or deficit).
⁴ See Hibbs (this volume) for an extensive discussion.
⁵ See Levitt and Wolfram 1997 and Ansolabehere and Snyder 2002 for evidence on the extent of
personal voting and incumbency advantages. Cain, Ferejohn, and Fiorina 1987 offer an extensive
examination of the sources of the personal vote in the United States and United Kingdom. Jacobson 1997
documents that differential candidate experience matters in elections.
⁶ Baron 1998 develops a general model of parliamentary governments.