Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
ROCZNIK LUBUSKI, cilt.50, sa.2, ss.39-53, 2024 (Hakemli Dergi)
This research aims to evaluate the appropriateness of proximity and
directional models of voting among voters occupying different ideological
positions on the ideological spectrum. The proximity model suggests that
voters vote for parties or candidates whose ideological or issue positions
are the closest to their own. In contrast, the directional model proposes
that voters vote favor parties that are on their side of the ideological or issue position, more but not too extreme than their positions. In this
research, we evaluate the appropriateness of the proximity and directional
models for voters from the left, center and right of the ideological spectrum.
Based on the extant research that shows right-wing candidates are more
congruent with their voters than the left-wing ones as well as on the fact
that the proximity model prioritizes ideological distance, we expect to find
that party-voter ideological congruence should act as a more significant
determinant of the right-wing voters’ utility calculation than that of the
left-wing ones. Thus, we hypothesize that the proximity model is a more
applicable tool than the directional model to measure right-wing party
preference relative to that of the left-wing. The analysis of the 2015
Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) data for the Turkish voter
supported our hypothesis and showed that voter ideology is a key factor in
understanding the applicability of the two rival models. As expected, the
proximity model, and to a lesser extent, the directional model appeared
to be more applicable tools for predicting voter utility of right-wing voters
than for predicting voter utility of left-wing voters.