El comportamiento electoral del votante en la mediana y las 'paradojas' de la competición política española

Astudillo Ruiz, Javier; Rodon i Casarramona, Antoni

doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.5477/cis/reis.144.3

El comportamiento electoral del votante en la mediana y las 'paradojas' de la competición política española

Citation

Astudillo J, Rodon T. El comportamiento electoral del votante en la mediana y las 'paradojas' de la competición política española. Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas. 2013;144:3-21. DOI: 10.5477/cis/reis.144.3

Abstract

Focusing on the 2000, 2008 and 2011 Spanish elections, this paper provides three contributions to the literature on electoral competition from a Downsian perspective. Firstly, an answer is offered to the three paradoxes that arise when applying the basic proximity vote model to electoral competition in Spain. Secondly, a more solid theoretical and empirical grounding is provided for the existing proposals to integrate non-positional issues into the Downsian model. Finally, a type of logistic regression is employed which is more appropriate for understanding the behaviour of the median voter, whose role is crucial in Spanish election results. Our fi ndings have important implications in understanding the workings of one of the most commonly used models in political science.