Valence issue

A valence issue is a political issue where there is a broad amount of consensus among voters. As valence issues are representative of a goal or quality, voters use valence issues to evaluate a political party’s effectiveness in producing this particular goal or quality.[1]

The valence issue concept is a way of theorizing about how voters are motivated to vote for competing parties in an election.[2] The concept was developed by Donald Stokes’s critique of voting behavior theories which Stokes foresaw as being too confined to ideas about a voter’s rationality and ideological impulses, as with spatial models of party competition.[3] Since Stokes noticed during an overview of historical U.S. elections that voters sometimes were not bound by self-interest or ideology.[4]

Valence issues can be contrasted and opposed to position issues, as position issues are organised by a voter’s ideology and their inclination for a selection of competing interests, rather than organised by the feelings of consensus found within valence issues.[5] As valence issues can shape the outcome of an election and therefore a future government, voters and politicians both adjust their behavior according to valence issues.[6]

  1. ^ Stokes, Donald E. (1963). "Spatial Models of Party Competition". The American Political Science Review. 57 (2): 372–373. doi:10.2307/1952828. ISSN 0003-0554. JSTOR 1952828. S2CID 143960993.
  2. ^ Green, Jane (24 June 2016). "When Voters and Parties Agree: Valence Issues and Party Competition" (PDF). Political Studies. 55 (3): 629–655. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9248.2007.00671.x. S2CID 4794102.
  3. ^ Stokes, Donald E. (1963). "Spatial Models of Party Competition". The American Political Science Review. 57 (2): 374. doi:10.2307/1952828. ISSN 0003-0554. JSTOR 1952828. S2CID 143960993.
  4. ^ Stokes, Donald E. (1963). "Spatial Models of Party Competition". The American Political Science Review. 57 (2): 372–373. doi:10.2307/1952828. ISSN 0003-0554. JSTOR 1952828. S2CID 143960993.
  5. ^ Congleton, Roger D.; Grofman, Bernard; Voigt, Stefan (8 January 2019). The Oxford handbook of public choice. Oxford University Press. p. 269. ISBN 9780190469733.
  6. ^ Congleton, Roger D.; Grofman, Bernard; Voigt, Stefan (8 January 2019). The Oxford handbook of public choice. Oxford University Press. p. 269. ISBN 9780190469733.