Normal choice

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The normal choice is a concept of electoral research , which in 1966 by the American political scientist Philip Converse was introduced and follows the social-psychological approach to the explanation of voting behavior. The concept was revised in 1981 by Morris P. Fiorina in a political-economic model.

A normal election is a fictitious election result that exists when the result of an election corresponds to the distribution of long-term party ties - party identification - of the electorate. In the socio-psychological approach, party identification is considered to be decisive and both factual and candidate orientations as preceding. It can be assumed from a "psychological party membership". The normal election is intended to exclude short-term influences on voter behavior and tactical voting from the analysis.

application

In order to use the concept in election research, among other things for the projection of future election events, Converse developed a method to calculate a normal election. The procedure could not prevail. In 1979, Christopher Achen proved that short-term influences were underestimated in the process. The calculation of a normal election for a projection is associated with considerable effort compared to voting intent surveys such as those collected by opinion research institutes.

The concept has been used several times in Germany. Jürgen W. Falter made the first successful attempt in 1977. In empirical social research , the question of party identification has since developed into a standard instrument. The usual wording is: “Many people in the Federal Republic tend to lean towards a certain party for a long time, even though they occasionally vote for a different party. How is it by you? Generally speaking, do you tend towards a particular political party? If yes, which?"

In 2009 Thomas Plischke and Hans Rattinger compared the results of 1,459 election projections in Germany between 1994 and 2005 with the results of a normal election calculation. They put the party identification in relation to the probability of voter participation. The stronger the party identification, the more likely it is to participate in the election and the less likely it is that short-term influences will dominate the voting decision. The results of the normal election showed lower fluctuations than the projections of the opinion research institutes and were closer to the results of the federal elections in each case .

literature

  • Jürgen W. Falter 1977: Once again: Can the concept of party identification be transferred to German conditions? In: Politische Vierteljahresschrift 18: pp. 476–500.
  • Harald Schoen , Cornelia Weins 2005: The social-psychological approach to explaining voting behavior. In: Falter, Jürgen W./Schoen, Harald (Hrsg.): Handbuch Wahlforschung. VS Verlag. Pp. 187-242.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Jochen Groß: The prognosis of election results. Approaches and empirical performance . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2010, ISBN 978-3-531-17273-6 , p. 218 .
  2. ↑ Jochen Groß: The prognosis of election results. Approaches and empirical performance . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2010, ISBN 978-3-531-17273-6 , p. 220 .
  3. ↑ a b c Thomas Plischke, Hans Rattinger 2009: “Shaky voter hand” or invalid measuring instrument? On the plausibility of election projections using the example of the 2005 Bundestag election . VS Verlag, Wiesbaden. ISBN 978-3-531-91666-8 , p. 496 ff.
  4. ^ Dieter Roth: Empirical election research. Origin, Theories, Instruments and Methods . 2nd Edition. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-531-15786-3 , p. 43 .