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US government and civics
Course: US government and civics > Unit 6
Lesson 1: Voting rights and models of voter behaviorVoting behavior
The video discusses four types of voting behavior: party-line voting, rational choice, retrospective voting, and prospective voting. Party-line voting is based on party loyalty, while rational choice voting considers personal benefits. Retrospective voting looks at past performance, and prospective voting focuses on future expectations.
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Video transcript
- What we're going to do in this video is start to
think about voting behavior, and in particular, we're going to start
classifying motivations for why someone votes for
a particular candidate, and I'm going to introduce some terms that will impress your
political science friends, but you'll see that they map two things that we see every day or
even behaviors that we see in ourselves in a pretty intuitive way. So one pretty clear reason
why someone might vote for one candidate or another is because of their political party, and so this would be referred
to as party-line voting. Party-line voting. So if your family has
always been a Republican, and you're a Republican, and you just always support
the Republican candidate, that would be party-line voting. Now, another behavior that political scientists will
often talk about is the idea of rational choice. Rational choice, and this is the idea that
someone would choose to vote for one candidate or another
based on a perception of which candidate is going
to benefit them the most, which one would it be rational
for their own wellbeing. So for example, if you
said, "Hey, you know what? "I really care about
the corporate tax rate. "I'm the CEO of a corporation. "If my corporate tax rate were to go down, "then I would be able to have
a more thriving business, "and I think one candidate
is going to do better for me "on the corporate tax rate, "and I'm gonna vote for
them because of that," that would be your rational
choice, your model, what's driving your voting behaviors, what's gonna benefit me. Now, another classification that you will hear talked
about is retrospective voting. Retrospective, and this is the idea that, hey, I'm just gonna vote for someone if it seems like they've
been doing a good job, or if it seems like
things have been improving under their watch. You're looking in retrospect, and this will often be
for incumbents, and say, "Hey, look, yeah, the last
term was pretty good with them, "so I'm gonna vote for them again." Now, the last classification
we will introduce in this video is the opposite
of retrospective voting, and this is looking into the
future, prospective voting. Prospective voting, and here, you might look
at one candidate and say, "Look, I think that they will
be better for the country "over the next four years." You're not even necessarily thinking about your own personal benefit. You're thinking about
the country as a whole, but you're looking forward. You're looking prospectively
and thinking about, hey, candidate A I think is
gonna do a better job, so I'm gonna vote for her. So with these classifications
out of the way, let's look at some statements
that you might hear from folks when they think
about who they are voting for. So here, it says, "The economy has been growing "under Clinton so he has my vote." So pause this video, and how would you classify
this motivation for voting? Well, here, the person, the voter, is talking about the
economy in the recent past. So this right over here
is retrospective voting. So I'll draw a line right over there. That is retrospective voting. Clinton seems to have
been doing a good job, where the economy's
been growing under him, so he has my vote. Now what about this statement? "I'm a lifelong Democrat
so Obama has my vote." Pause this video. What type of voting behavior is that? Well, here, the individual
is clearly motivated by their party line. They're not talking about
Obama being good for them, in particular. They're not talking about
what Obama's gonna do in the future or what he's
done in the recent past. They're just talking about his party and that being the motivation
for voting for him. So that would be party line voting. Now what about this statement? "Bush has ideas that will be
really good for this country so I'm going to vote for him." Pause this video. What type of voting behavior is that? Well, here, the voter's
thinking prospectively, thinking about, well, what
will Bush do for the country in the near future, ideas
that will be really good for this country? So that is prospective voting, and then one more example... So if someone were to say, "I think Mitt Romney will lower my taxes "so I'm going to vote for
him," what would that be? Pause the video again. Well, we have one choice left here, and that is indeed rational choice. This voter is voting based on
what is going to benefit them. Mitt Romney's gonna lower their taxes, so they're gonna vote for them, and to be clear, it's not that everyone's
behavior falls clearly into one of these categories. It oftentimes will be a
mix of these categories. In fact, oftentimes someone might say, "Hey, I like Obama 'cause he's a Democrat, "and I think he's going
to be good for me," and things might've been good under him, or the perception is that
things are good under him, and they might believe that it's gonna be good going forward. Many voters will be motivated
by a combination of these.