Ideology and Uncontested Elections

The Ideology that a certain candidate holds, concedably, has an effect on mass opinion
and perception of electoral candidates, and most likely affect voting choices of the mass base.
The relationship of ideology to the possible victory/defeat and future political careers of
candidates has always been an interest to most political scientists in the US. This paper examines
these literature presenting the relationship of ideology to different variables concerning election.
Ideology and Uncontested Elections
Ideology and Ideological extremism is one of the variables used in Squire’s Competition
and Uncontested Seats in US House Elections (1989) in explaining the phenomena of
Uncontested Elections. In his literature review he notes that incumbents who are ideologically
extreme (e.g. extremely conservative or extremely liberal, as measured in their ADA score), are
more likely to attract electoral challengers that more moderate representatives.
Bernhard et.al (2011) however have a more elaborative take on ideological extremism
where they found out that the effect of extremism has a negative correlation to first-time
government officials while re-electionists have positive correlation. The reason for this is that
first-time government officials are more likely to compromise in ideology, when operationalized
on the policy-making process. They note that candidates who are more willing to adapt to
demands and compromises, even at the expense of some of the fronts of their ideological
background, are more likely to win. Conversely, first-time candidates who go extreme tend to
lose because he has little to no experience yet to handle public demand that can thoroughly fit his
ideology. (Bernhard, 2011)
For re-electionists, ideological extremism has a positive value because of the perception
of continuity (Bernhard, 2011). This means that it is more accepting for re-electionists to go
extreme in ideology because of a temporal base support he generated as he continues his political
career. Conversely as well, re-electionists who do not go ideologically extreme have negative
effects because most probably people will vote for a challenger who is also a moderate.
(Bernhard, 2011)
Therefore, for Bernhard, in the context of uncontested election, the phenomena occurs
because of shifts of ideological stances, where first time candidates are more likely to be
ideologically moderate in order to generate mass base support, but have to eventually shift to
ideological extremism, once one establishes a support base.
Lachat provides an interesting insight on the effect of ideology in the US elections.

Lachat (2011) introduces terms such as “party polarization”, “fragmentation”, and “proportional
electoral system” to refer symptoms/requisites of a competitive election. He argues that greater
polarization (the phenomena where public opinion divides and goes to the ideological extremes)
to different competing ideologies entail a more competitive election.
Lachat provides three attempts to explain ideology and voting: Proximity Voting, Voting
based on Party Heuristics, and single-issue voting. Proximity voting is a model where it suggests
that people tend to vote for parties whose ideologies come closer to theirs in the political space
(Lachat, 2011; 647). However, he finds this model a little too dubious because it is too much of
an assumption to say that voters can holistically digest the parties’ overall political positions and
ideologies. Lachat notes,
While such a model of electoral competition is attractive from a

normative standpoint, it makes demanding assumptions for voters. Citizens have
limited information about parties' positions and politics in general and invest limited
cognitive resources in their electoral choices and other political decisions. (Sniderman et.al 1991;
Zaller 1992; Bartels 1996; cited in Lachat 2011)
The next thing that Lachat would consider is on Party Heuristics where he characterizes it
as the reference merely to the party affiliation of the candidate, with usual stereotypes or images
they associate with parties are reference. The limitation, however, of this model is the
verification of stereotypes itself.
Lachat presents a third attempt to show the relationship of ideology to voting where he
calls it as “single-issue voting” as decision to support a given party because they perceive it as
the best able to handle what they see as the most pressing political problem.
The study found out that under a competitive election, ideology plays a vital role in
determining what sort of judgment does the electorate has to take. And conversely, in non-
competitive, uncontested elections, ideology does not play too much of a role because the
electorate is settled with no choices/alternatives.
Ideology and Elections

In the study of Hill and Leighley, they cited that Ideology can affect campaign spending
among gubernatorial seats in US elections. They found out that Republicans tend to spend more
campaign money and utilize machineries than Democrats. The explanation to these was
Republicans are more composed of businessmen and business owners, and their particular
economic policies were more directed to the support of the market economy over social welfare.
Because Republicans carry the agenda of the businessmen, they are most likely to receive
campaign money, over democrats. (Hill and Leighley, 1993)
Lyons and Scheb (1992) argues that the framing of present issues e.g., the strategic
framing of which issues are deemed relevant also affect the ideological preference of the voters.
In their study, they found out that the 1984 and 1988 elections were full of issues that came at the
consequence of the Republican candidate George W. Bush. Bush faced issues on foreign policies,
following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the Republican stance was discredited, even if
Bush was known to have Foreign Policy as his main strategic advantage. (Lyons and Scheb,
1992)
Uncontested Elections in the Philippines
Uncontested Elections in the Philippines remain speculative and has an unfounded

theoretical explanation. Based from the literature cited above, it could be, however, hypothesized
that Philippine Uncontested Elections have an ideological element as well.
Even though the Philippines has no to little concern on ideological blacks and whites,
where parties do not necessarily have ideological formations and differentiations, the attack of
politicians on issues certainly matter. Social values of the Filipino such as of religion and
morality, family value, etc., are possible determinants of the ideological foundations of the elites
who compete in the election, and of the mass electorate. It’s just a matter of re-orienting to
popular social values and demands from the electorate.
Ideology can be used to explain the phenomena of uncontested elections to the extent that
as long as values and orientations of the politician relate to traditional values that are propagated
by the church and the family, the politician remains uncontested.

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The Ideology that a certain candidate holds, concedably, has an effect on mass opinion

Ideology and Uncontested Elections

Lachat provides an interesting insight on the effect of ideology in the US elections.

While such a model of electoral competition is attractive from a

Ideology and Elections

Uncontested Elections in the Philippines

Uncontested Elections in the Philippines remain speculative and has an unfounded

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