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Journal section "Public administration efficiency"

Spatial and Logical Model of American Electorate Political Choice Formalization: Experience for Russia

Petrov A.I.

Volume 10, Issue 2, 2017

Petrov A.I. Spatial and Logical Model of American Electorate Political Choice Formalization: Experience for Russia. Economic and Social Changes: Facts, Trends, Forecast, 2017, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 109-129. DOI: 10.15838/esc.2017.2.50.6

DOI: 10.15838/esc.2017.2.50.6

Abstract   |   Authors   |   References
The results of the 58th US presidential election held November 8th, 2016 turned out a big surprise for many people. Numerous public opinion polls in the USA on political loyalty conducted by various researchers from July to October, 2016, demonstrated a steady trend of an electoral advantage of the Democratic Party’s nominee (H. Clinton). However, during election (November 8th, 2016) the Republican Party’s nominee D. Trump won with 306 electoral votes against 232. Why did this happen? Experts, political analysts have different explanations of this choice of American voters. In this article, the author makes an attempt to conduct a simple statistical analysis of the results of American electorate political preferences using basic socio-economic categories such as “quality of life”, “gross domestic product”, “employment” and “crime”. The hypothesis accepted as the basis for the author’s arguments implies that the voters’ political preferences greatly depend on the actual quality of people’s lives, which is highly differentiated in the US states. With all the variety of conditions and lifestyles, regional peculiarities form a certain preferred attitude of citizens to the country’s political future. In this regard, to prove this thesis the author analyzed statistical data on US states describing the results of the 58th presidential election and some indicators of the socio-economic development of these territories. Based on these data, the author designed a regression model of correlation of indicators “ratio of electoral votes for the Democratic Party’s nominee to electoral votes for the Republican Party’s nominee” and “American Human Development Index” (AHDI) which evaluates the generalized quality of life of citizens in different states. The author also considers the regression model of AHDI dependence on factors such as US gross domestic product. To confirm the logic the author attempts to establish a statistical link between the outcome of assessment of the US population’s political preferences and the level of road accident rate as one of the indicators of the quality of life. The research results help conclude that electoral votes at the 58th US presidential election are of the protest nature, reflecting Americans’ need for the global socio-economic changes. The article discusses the possible implications of D. Trump’s presidency for the international community and the experience which can be drawn from political choice of American electorate for the Russian government

Keywords

correlation-regression analysis, 2016 us presidential election, election results, quality of life of the us states population, electorate political choice, protest nature of election

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