A lot is theorized about how social preferences turn into policy. What translates an issue to a politician has to be somewhat abstract, after all, politicians are a mishmash of various beliefs and policy statements. But, models exist to simplify our world, and give a sense of coherence to it. I want to compare two models that I think can be used to explain voting patterns into politicians or salience.
One popular theory is the idea of median voter theorem. For a given issue, voters preferences lie on a spectrum. Voters will vote for a candidate who is closest to their perspective on a given issue, and it’s incentivized for politicians to move towards the median, or center position. In essence, politicians serve as aggregation machines, moving towards centrism. In representative democracies, this can be shown by relatively few ideologically extreme candidates, and bipartisanship over certain issues that have high popularity. This model, if true, means that since we often split the difference on issues, the benefits of extreme approaches may be unrecognized.
Here’s an example. If one group of people believes that America should be pacifist, while another believes they should be the world’s police officers and have the resources to do so, and have similar numbers, the outcome would likely contain the disadvantages of being the world’s police officers, without the advantages with doubling down on the position.
I don’t think median voter theorem is particularly persuasive model of the world because I think it underestimates how much wedge issues are important.
An alternative model that I think better addresses this is what I’ll call marginal issue theorem, which essentially argues that voters typically vote on a specific set of issues that’s important to them. Decisions, rather than being made at the median, are at the margins.
Take something like pro-life advocacy. Many Catholics are single issue voters who will vote entirely based on this. Positions on gun control, racial politics, and transportation policy take a backseat. Thus, being pro-life remains a constituency, because once you get to a plurality amount of votes, you can focus elsewhere. Most of the time, people have issues they care a lot more about and a lot less about. Where people are organized and willing to change their votes, you’re likely to see more traction for that side.
The benefit to this theory is that it explains the role of policy entrepreneurship, and generally why only a couple issues are salient at a given time. When someone brings up a policy no one else is talking about, they’ll likely receive the votes of the people in favor of updating the policy, without receiving much voting or opposition against them.
This view also materializes better into primary politics, as it can better explain why people aren’t going toe to toe on ‘the issues’ already existing, and instead draw focus to issues they can claim to have unique insight into.
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