Presidential Elections
An Explanation of Voting Defection
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4860140 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Richard W Boyd, Richard Boyd (Indiana University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1969 |
| Volume | 63 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 498-514 |
| Publication date | 1969-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Political Science Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1954703 |
| OpenAlex | W4237905394 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 36 |
This paper proposes and tests a modest theory of voting defection, the act of voting contrary to party identification. The relevance of voting defection to popular control of government is clear. Except for the infrequent elections that Key calls "critical," the identification of people with their parties is very stable over time. The percentage of Democrats and Republicans in the electorate changed only slightly in the four presidential elections from 1952 to 1964. Short term shifts in public attitudes, then, are reflected not in shifts in the distribution of party identification, but in the degree that people vote in accordance with their identification. When they are disenchanted with the President, defection will be high among members of the opposition party and low among members of the party in office. In 1952 people were weary of the Korean War; this weariness was apparent in the massive numbers of Democrats who thought Eisenhower a man capable of ending the conflict and who backed up their convictions with Republican votes. In short, in the rate of defection we have a mirror that reflects popular discontent with the politics of the President. My present concern is to explore some personal attributes of the voters who make up this critical electorate, to augment the propositions surrounding party identification with one explanation of why it is that people vote contrary to their party allegiance
Allegiance · Identification · Opposition (politics · Relevance · Straight-ticket voting · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Politics and Society in Latin America · Populism, Right-Wing Movements
Elections and the political order
Use of Dummy Variables in Regression Equations
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The principle of belief congruence and the congruity principle as models of cognitive interaction.
Social Mobility in Industrial Society
Correlated Independent Variables
Tests of Status Inconsistency Theory
A distribution-free test of analysis of variance hypotheses
The People's Choice
Status Consistency and Preference for Change In Power Distribution
The American occupational structure
A Theory of Critical Elections
Status Inconsistency, Social Mobility, Status Integration and Structural Effects
The Identification Problem and Theory Building
Status Consistency and Right-Wing Extremism
Social Mobility and Interpersonal Relations
The Electoral Process
Status Consistency and Symptoms of Stress
Status Inconsistency and the Vote
Status and Symptoms of Stress
Status Crystallization
Status Consistency and Political Attitudes
Some Dynamic Elements of Contests for the Presidency
Status Inconsistency and Interaction
Status Discrepancy and Prejudice
Occupational Prestige in the United States, 1925-63
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,06 |
| Citation span | 1977 - 2025 (49) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |