The heterogeneity of discussion networks has been shown to have an effect on citizens' ideas and behavior. In this article, the author undertakes to show that the relative heterogeneity of political discussion networks affects voter coordination on two parties in a single-member plurality system. Specifically, if voters do not have access to polling information about the relative standing of candidates, voters whose discussion networks are ideologically heterogeneous are more likely to coordinate on two parties than voters whose discussion networks are ideologically homogeneous. The author examines this hypothesis using an agent-based model.
Axtell, Robert, and Joshua Epstein.1996. Growing artificial societies: Social sciences from the bottom up. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
2.
Baybeck, Brady, and Scott McClurg.2005. What do they know and how do they know it? American Political Research Quarterly33:492-520.
3.
Blais, Andre, and Mathieu Turgeon.2004. How good are voters at sorting out the weakest candidate in their constituency?Electoral Studies23:455-61.
4.
Cederman, Lars-Erik.1997. Emergent actors in world politics: How states and nations develop and dissolve. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
5.
Chhibber, Pradeep K., and Ken Kollman.2004. The formation of national party systems. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
6.
Cho, Wendy Tam, and Thomas Rudolph. Forthcoming. Emanating political participation: Untangling the spatial structure behind participation. British Journal of Political Science.
7.
Clough, Emily.2007. Strategic voting under conditions of uncertainty. British Journal of Political Science37 (2): 313-32.
8.
Cox, Gary W.1997. Making votes count. New York: Cambridge University Press.
9.
Duverger, Maurice.1954. Political parties. New York: Wiley.
10.
Frey, William H.1995. The new geography of population shifts: Trends toward balkanization. In State of the union: America in the 1990s , vol. 2, ed. Reynolds Farley.New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
11.
Gaines, Brian.1999. Duverger's Law and the meaning of Canadian exceptionalism . Comparative Political Studies332:835-61.
12.
Granovetter, Mark. 1973 . The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology78:1360-80.
13.
Harrison, Roderick J., and Claudette E. Bennett.1995. Racial and ethnic diversity . In State of the union: America in the 1990s, vol. 2, ed. Reynolds Farley.New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
14.
Herbst, Susan.1993. Numbered voices: How opinion polling has shaped American politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
15.
Huckfeldt, Robert, Ken'ichi Ikeda, and Franz Urban Pappi .2005. Patterns of disagreement in democratic politics: Comparing Germany, Japan, and the United States. American Political Science Review49:497-514.
16.
Huckfeldt, Robert, Paul Johnson, and John D. Sprague.2004. Political disagreement: The survival of diverse opinions within communication networks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
17.
Huckfeldt, Robert, and John Sprague.1987. Networks in context: The social flow of political information . American Political Science Review81:1197:12-16.
18.
———. 1995. Citizens, politics and social communication: Information and influence in an election campaign. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
19.
Ikeda, Ken'ichi, and Robert Huckfeldt.2001. Political communication and disagreement among citizens in Japan and the United States. Political Behavior23:23-51.
20.
Karandikar, Rajeeva L., Clive Payne, and Yogendra Yadav.2002. Predicting the 1998 Indian parliamentary election. Electoral Studies21:69-89.
21.
Kollman, Ken, John Miller, and Scott Page.1992. Adaptive parties in spatial elections. American Political Science Review86:929-37.
22.
Levy, Frank.1995. Incomes and income inequality. In State of the unionAmerica in the 1990s, vol. 2, ed. Reynolds Farley. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
23.
Littlewood, Thomas B.1998. Calling elections: The history of horse-race journalism . Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
24.
Mutz, Diana C.2002a. The consequences of cross-cutting networks for political participation. American Journal of Political Science46:838-55.
25.
———. 2002b. Cross-cutting social networks: Testing democratic theory in practice. American Political Science Review96:111-26.
26.
———. 2006. Hearing the other side. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
27.
Mutz, Diana C., and Paul S. Martin.2001. Facilitating communication across lines of political difference: The role of mass media. American Political Science Review95:97-114.
28.
Myerson, Roger, and Robert Weber.1993. A theory of voting equilibria. American Political Science Review87:102-14.
29.
Palfrey, Thomas.1989. A mathematical proof of Duverger's Law. In Models of strategic choice in politics, ed. Peter C. Ordeshook.Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
