Contingent Value Response

Today for most Australian’s the potential of what a vote can represent is lost in political apathy and some could argue that this directly relates to how the leaders of the two main political parties continually compete for the populist vote. This environment is dominated by the media portrayal of our political parties and as a result of this, policies for the long term interests of the country have become secondary to short term wins (Marsh, 2010).

A voter can be defined as an individual who votes, or has the right to vote, in elections. Voting behaviour is explained using the concepts of expressive voting and strategic voting. A rational voter would act more strategically, that is, the voter would vote to produce an election outcome which is as close as possible to his or her own policy preferences, rather than voting on the basis of party attachment, ideology, or social group membership (expressive voting). Strategic voting has become more important than voting on the basis of political cleavages (expressive voting), so voters have become more rational in their approach, however there is always an element of expressiveness in their behaviour. Political parties were initially formed to represent the interests of particular groups in society however, as these parties became more universal in the appeal of their policy programmes, voting behaviour shifted from expressive to strategic. This essay explores the reasons behind the declining importance of political cleavages, and the rise of strategic voting.

One of the greatest factors in deciding which Member of Parliament many voters will trust with representing them is the level of confidence they have in the political leader. Confidence is the greatest of all voter assets for it requires knowledge of the leader’s platform, and the platform of the opposition.

Brennan argue that one should obtain from voting if there vote will contribute to harmful activities. The author calls this contribution to harmful activities bad voting; he does make the distinction that someone does not vote badly if they have substantial evidence that the policy was good, but it ended up being harmful. The individual votes do not have a large enough impact to sway the outcome of the vote in a certain direction, the harm from bad voting is a collective effort among a group of voters. This argument does take into account voting

To have an effective democracy, a country must have an effective electoral system. The First Past the Post electoral system, used in the United States popular vote, has come under fire as being ineffective and inadequate when compared to rival electoral systems. Two articles that represent the sides of this debate are “Vote of no Confidence” by McKenna and Cameron’s speech “Keeping First Past the Post is Vital for Democracy”. In his article, McKenna says that First Past the Post allows for “a negation of democracy”, and discusses how other electoral systems would be superior. On the other hand, Cameron decries the Alternative Vote system, the most likely replacement of First Past the Post, saying that it “makes winners of losers and losers of winners”.

Campbell et al. (1960) argued that the continuous party support was based on a psychological attachment that voters held to a particular party, termed political identification (Campbell et al., 1960, 121). This attachment can occur without formal recognition (e.g. party associations) or a consistent record of support for the specific party (Campbell et al., 1960, 121), denoting the distinction between the vote and PID, a trend that has been shown in later studies (McAllister, 2011, 50). This means that while a voter may be politically aligned with a party, this PID may not determine their vote. It is important to recognise however, that voters do typically vote in alignment with their preferred party (McAllister, 2011, 50). This notion is supported by the 1987 AES, which showed the majority of voters supporting the Labor Party (ALP), as shown in Figure 1., which correlates with the 1987 election of Labor leader Bob Hawke, and the 2013 AES, which indicated that the majority were politically aligned with the Liberal-National Coalition (Coalition), shown in Figure 2., which resulted in the 2013 election of Tony Abbott, Coalition leader. This data supports an argument put forth by Holmberg (2007), which is that established PID should be stable and immune to external influences (e.g. political change), aside from cases of extreme circumstance (Holmberg, 2007, 563).

Exit polls, like most surveys, unfold in four distinct but often overlapping stages / Research-ers usually begin by developing procedures for drawing a probabilistic sample of voters whose responses can be inferred to the active electorate with a high degree of confidence. They develop a questionnaire, capable of both describing the types of voters participating in an election as well as offering insights into the reasoning behind their choices. Interviewers are trained and eventually employed to disseminate the questionnaires to and collect them from sampled voters on Election Day. The process concludes with the integration of voters’ responses into a data set for analysis. The specific procedures used for each stage vary by polling organization; therefore, I focus my discussion on those procedures developed by Warren Mitofsky, Murray Edelman,

4. Claims of value. Is it good or bad? Beneficial or harmful? Moral or immoral? Who says so? What do these people value? What value system will be used to judge?

According to Dworkin, democracy is an egalitarian perception to political equality (). Dworkin argues for a substantive approach to democratic procedure; in effort to secure an equal distribution of political power to citizens as a whole (9; 117). Dworkin’s consequential approach classifies two types of political decisions: “choice-sensitive” and “choice-insensitive” issues (132). Dworkin defines choice-sensitive issues in terms of justice that: “depends essentially on character and distribution of preferences within the political community” (132). For example, Dworkin asserts: “The decision whether to use available public funds to build a new sports center or a new road system is typically choice-sensitive” (132).

Price seems to be the best measure for utility as almost anything can be commodified and priced by members of the population. Furthermore, other economic measures, such as how a decision increases a person’s wealth, will not reach the full population affected by this decision as some parties, like tourists do not have their wealth increased by such a public property decision. Determining the value that individuals place on the property in question on Beacon Hill, the historic sidewalks and ramps necessitates looking into the different groups of interested individuals affected by the Beacon Hill handicapped ramp decision.

opportunity for both sides of this debate to reveal the benefits of their plans and the drawbacks of

The difference between back then and the society we live in today, is that there are now many things that money can actually buy. By exploring the Good Life, the topic of economic value comes to mind and the question that permeates is if that thing should or should not have an economic value. It is crazy to think about some of the things that people charge others that do not have any real significance. For instance, Michael Sandel pointed how in some cities, non-violent offenders can pay ninety dollars a night for a prison-cell upgrade. That is an example to me that seems very pointless because if a person is a criminal why should his or hers economic status put them to a greater advantage than anybody else in that prison. Drawing from the content from this week’s readings I believe that certain things should contain more economic value than other. For instance things like the internet, adoptions, health care, education, and parking are things to me that have economic value, but really shouldn't. On the contrary, things that should have economic value are things like the preservation of the environment, museums, and recreational and national parks.

Value, as defined by Smith, “has two different meanings, and sometimes, expresses the utility of some particular object, and sometimes the power of purchasing other goods which the possession of that object conveys.” He further clarifies these values as ‘value in use’ and ‘value in exchange,’ defined as the value an individual receives from the use of a good and the value an individual would pay for or would be willing to sell a good for, respectively. The chapter consist of three main goals, Smith endeavored to show “what is the real measure of this exchangeable value,” “what are the real parts of which this real price is composed,” and “what are the different circumstances which sometimes raise some or all of these different parts of price above, and sometimes sink them below their natural or ordinary rate.”

According to one of rational choice theory’s prominent and more thoughtful contemporary exponents, Peter C. Ordeshook, “four books mark the beginning of modern political theory: Anthony Downs’s An Economic Theory of Democracy (1957), Duncan Black’s Theory of Committees and Elections (1958), William H. Riker’s A Theory of Political Coalitions (1962), and James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock’s The Calculus of Consent (1962). These volumes, along with Kenneth Arrow’s Social Choice and Individual Values (1951), began such a wealth of research that political scientists today have difficulty digesting and synthesizing all but small parts of it. Consequently, the full value of this research often goes

Value is a concept that has played a major role in the development of political economy and mainstream economics, however, in today’s context it is not often discussed. This being true, the debate surrounding value and how to define it remains an important one for today’s society. The debate when looked at from the classical and neoclassical perspective centres on whether value is inherent or whether it is an outcome of human desires, comparing Ricardo’s labour theory of value and Smith’s adding up theory with the neoclassical school’s focus on demand and supply, marginal utility and equilibrium price given maximising individuals. The classical model, especially with its focus on scarcity is strong, however, it is the neoclassical argument that is most relevant today as it complements the highly globalised and technological economy of the present day.