The Supply and Demand of the Personal Vote

Abstract

Existing theories assume that particularistic behavior and personal voting are synonymous, and that the level and nature of such activities are driven by the incentives of individual candidates. In this article, both of these assumptions are contested and empirical evidence is provided to suggest that particularistic behavior and personal voting are quite distinct, and that collective party incentives can be equally important in determining both the level and nature of personal voting. This is particularly true in settings where there is direct conflict between the incentives of individual candidates and the incentives of the party. To establish this, electoral politics in Ireland and Japan since 1945 are compared and also how the inability of voters to transfer votes under SNTV fundamentally altered the level and nature of personal voting in that system.