PT5.S1.Q21 -- Political Scandals

mdefelice

I am really struggling to see how answer choice E resolves the paradox best and not D -- E seems to be irrelevant and D does a good job of explaining the different reactions of voters.>

Claudia77

According to the stimulus, whenever there is a major scandal prior to an election and voters blame all parties equally, all incumbents running for reelection are returned to office. When voters blame only one party for the scandal, however, incumbents from that party are likely to be voted out.

The question stem asked us to find a principle that would best explain the voters behaviour. Note that this isn't a Resolve the Paradox question - the voters' behaviour isn't seemingly paradoxical. What we are looking for is an answer that provides a general rule that the voters' behaviour can be said to conform to.

Answer choice D (incorrect) says that while major scandals can always be blamed on incumbents, whether or not those incumbents should be voted out of office depends on who their challengers are.
This principle doesn't indicate that voters should vote against incumbents only when their party is blamed for the scandal. It also doesn't address why voters reelect incumbents when the blame is shared. Further, the stimulus never mentioned that the challenging candidate is relevant.

Answer choice E (correct) says that when a scandal is the responsibility of a party more so than its incumbent members, that party should be penalized when possible. This principle account for the voters behaviour. When blame is shared equally amongst parties, voters aren't able to penalize the guilty party by voting out its incumbents (because no party is solely responsible). But when one party is identified as responsible, voters must penalize them. The voters' reactions completely conform to this principle.

atw_______

Answer choice D (incorrect) says that while major scandals can always be blamed on incumbents, whether or not those incumbents should be voted out of office depends on who their challengers are.
This principle doesn't indicate that voters should vote against incumbents only when their party is blamed for the scandal. It also doesn't address why voters reelect incumbents when the blame is shared. Further, the stimulus never mentioned that the challenging candidate is relevant.

If blame is shared equally among all parties, they could all be penalized equally under this principle leaving the vote share the same as it was before. By contrast, when their challengers are not penalized by voters broadly (as in the case where only one party is blamed), the incumbent from the penalized party plausibly "should" be voted out office (hence the "depends on who their challengers are" part).

Essentially, whether incumbents are to be voted out of office depends on whether their challengers' parties are also to blame. Where all the parties are to blame, they should not be voted out of office simply due to that scandal because the challengers are equally to blame.

I guess it depends on whether you interpret "can always be blamed on incumbents" as blamed only on incumbents. I interpreted it as can always be blamed on incumbents (but not necessarily only on incumbents, as the stem doesn't say that and specifically refers to cases where voters blame all parties equally).

Further, the stimulus never mentioned that the challenging candidate is relevant.

Is this not implied? Voting out an incumbent logically means voting in a challenger. If the voters blame "all parties about equally" that implies they blame their challenger(s) about equally. If instead they blame only one party, that implies they don't blame the challenger(s) of the incumbent(s) from the blamed party.