Electoral Behavior

This four-volume collection provides a rich overview of one of the core areas of political science research: voting. The quantitative study of voting behavior (psephology) in particular has developed as a highly specialized field since the 1980s and has spawned a vast literature from a wide array of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. This set maps out the development of psephology in the post-war period to its current state, and covers the following broad themes:

• Historical evolution of voting studies; • Sociological models; • Cognition and the voter calculus; • Electoral systems; • The electoral context; • Debates and methodology

Editors' Introduction: The Evolving Study of Electoral Behavior

KaiArzheimer and JocelynEvans

Introduction

The history of the scientific study of voting behavior (‘psephology’) goes back almost a hundred years, but as an important and often vibrant subfield of political science, it only took off during the discipline's post-Second World War behavioral revolution. Today, the field is well established and is considered part of the ‘core business’ of political science, enjoying links with other areas as diverse as party systems, European studies, and political theory. Moreover, the study of voting behavior is very much an interdisciplinary exercise. Three of the most influential approaches to the study of voting behavior that to date have informed the way political scientists think about voting behavior – Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet (1944), Campbell ...

locked icon

Sign in to access this content

Get a 30 day FREE TRIAL

  • Watch videos from a variety of sources bringing classroom topics to life
  • Read modern, diverse business cases
  • Explore hundreds of books and reference titles