IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2305.02834.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Strategic flip-flopping in political competition

Author

Listed:
  • Gaetan Fournier
  • Alberto Grillo
  • Yevgeny Tsodikovich

Abstract

We study candidates' positioning when adjustments are possible in response to new information about voters' preferences. Re-positioning allows candidates to get closer to the median voter but is costly both financially and electorally. We examine the occurrence and the direction of the adjustments depending on the ex-ante positions and the new information. In the unique subgame perfect equilibrium, candidates anticipate the possibility to adjust in response to future information and diverge ex-ante in order to secure a cost-less victory when the new information is favorable.

Suggested Citation

  • Gaetan Fournier & Alberto Grillo & Yevgeny Tsodikovich, 2023. "Strategic flip-flopping in political competition," Papers 2305.02834, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2305.02834
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2305.02834
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jason Matthew DeBacker, 2015. "Flip‐Flopping: Ideological Adjustment Costs In The United States Senate," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 53(1), pages 108-128, January.
    2. Margit Tavits, 2007. "Principle vs. Pragmatism: Policy Shifts and Political Competition," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(1), pages 151-165, January.
    3. Timothy Besley & Stephen Coate, 1997. "An Economic Model of Representative Democracy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 85-114.
    4. Enelow, James M & Munger, Michael C, 1993. "The Elements of Candidate Reputation: The Effect of Record and Credibility on Optimal Spatial Location," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 77(4), pages 757-772, December.
    5. Prato, Carlo & Wolton, Stephane, 2019. "Campaign Cost and Electoral Accountability," Political Science Research and Methods, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(1), pages 1-21, January.
    6. Yuichiro Kamada & Takuo Sugaya, 2020. "Optimal Timing of Policy Announcements in Dynamic Election Campaigns," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(3), pages 1725-1797.
    7. Jean Tirole, 1988. "The Theory of Industrial Organization," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262200716, December.
    8. Balart, Pau & Casas, Agustin & Troumpounis, Orestis, 2022. "Technological change, campaign spending and polarization," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    9. Adams, James & Clark, Michael & Ezrow, Lawrence & Glasgow, Garrett, 2004. "Understanding Change and Stability in Party Ideologies: Do Parties Respond to Public Opinion or to Past Election Results?," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(4), pages 589-610, October.
    10. Navin Kartik & R. Preston McAfee, 2007. "Signaling Character in Electoral Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 852-870, June.
    11. , & ,, 2007. "Party platforms in electoral competition with heterogeneous constituencies," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 2(1), pages 41-70, March.
    12. Stratmann, Thomas, 2000. "Congressional Voting over Legislative Careers: Shifting Positions and Changing Constraints," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 94(3), pages 665-676, September.
    13. Alexei Zakharov, 2009. "A model of candidate location with endogenous valence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 138(3), pages 347-366, March.
    14. James Adams & Michael Clark & Lawrence Ezrow & Garrett Glasgow, 2006. "Are Niche Parties Fundamentally Different from Mainstream Parties? The Causes and the Electoral Consequences of Western European Parties' Policy Shifts, 1976–1998," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(3), pages 513-529, July.
    15. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    16. Hummel, Patrick, 2010. "Flip-flopping from primaries to general elections," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 1020-1027, December.
    17. Ashworth, Scott, 2006. "Campaign Finance and Voter Welfare with Entrenched Incumbents," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 100(1), pages 55-68, February.
    18. Marina Agranov, 2016. "Flip-Flopping, Primary Visibility, and the Selection of Candidates," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(2), pages 61-85, May.
    19. Alesina, Alberto, 1988. "Credibility and Policy Convergence in a Two-Party System with Rational Voters," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(4), pages 796-805, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Forand, Jean Guillaume, 2014. "Two-party competition with persistent policies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 64-91.
    2. Gersbach, Hans & Tejada, Oriol, 2018. "A Reform Dilemma in polarized democracies," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 148-158.
    3. Per G. Fredriksson & Le Wang & Patrick L Warren, 2013. "Party Politics, Governors, and Economic Policy," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 80(1), pages 106-126, July.
    4. Giorgio Bellettini & Paolo Roberti, 2020. "Politicians’ coherence and government debt," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 182(1), pages 73-91, January.
    5. Enriqueta Aragonès & Dimitrios Xefteris, 2022. "Ideological Consistency and Valence," Working Papers 1383, Barcelona School of Economics.
    6. Jason Matthew DeBacker, 2015. "Flip‐Flopping: Ideological Adjustment Costs In The United States Senate," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 53(1), pages 108-128, January.
    7. Gouvêa, Raphael & Girardi, Daniele, 2021. "Partisanship and local fiscal policy: Evidence from Brazilian cities," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    8. Hortala-Vallve, Rafael & Esteve-Volart, Berta, 2011. "Voter turnout and electoral competition in a multidimensional policy space," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 376-384, June.
    9. Yasushi Asako, 2015. "Campaign promises as an imperfect signal: How does an extreme candidate win against a moderate candidate?," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 27(4), pages 613-649, October.
    10. Selim Jürgen Ergun, 2015. "Centrist’S Curse? An Electoral Competition Model With Credibility Constraints," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 60(05), pages 1-18, December.
    11. Agustin Casas, 2020. "Ideological extremism and primaries," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 69(3), pages 829-860, April.
    12. Portmann, Marco & Stadelmann, David & Eichenberger, Reiner, 2022. "Incentives dominate selection – Chamber-changing legislators are driven by electoral rules and voter preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 353-366.
    13. Caroline Le Pennec, 2020. "Strategic Campaign Communication: Evidence from 30,000 Candidate Manifestos," SoDa Laboratories Working Paper Series 2020-05, Monash University, SoDa Laboratories.
    14. Christopher Williams & Jae-Jae Spoon, 2015. "Differentiated party response: The effect of Euroskeptic public opinion on party positions," European Union Politics, , vol. 16(2), pages 176-193, June.
    15. Schönenberger, Felix, 2023. "Strategic Policy Responsiveness to Opponent Platforms: Evidence From U.S. House Incumbents Running Against Moderate or Extremist Challengers," MPRA Paper 120160, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Magnus Carlsson & Gordon B. Dahl & Dan-Olof Rooth, 2015. "Backlash in Policy Attitudes After the Election of Extreme Political Parties," NBER Working Papers 21062, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Per G. Fredriksson & Le Wang, 2020. "The politics of environmental enforcement: the case of the Resource and Conservation Recovery Act," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(6), pages 2593-2613, June.
    18. Carlsson, Magnus & Dahl, Gordon B. & Rooth, Dan-Olof, 2016. "Do Politicians Change Public Attitudes?," IZA Discussion Papers 10349, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    20. Juan Carlos Berganza, 1998. "Relationships Between Politicians and Voters Through Elections: A Review Essay," Working Papers wp1998_9809, CEMFI.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2305.02834. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.