IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_9374.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Political Competition with Endogenous Party Formation and Citizen Activists

Author

Listed:
  • Emanuel Hansen

Abstract

This paper studies the effects of endogenous party formation on political platforms. It develops a model in which parties allow like-minded citizens to, first, share the cost of running in a public election and, second, coordinate on a policy platform. The paper characterizes the set of political equilibria with two competing parties and with one uncontested party. In two-party equilibria, the distance between both platforms is always positive but limited, in contrast to the median voter model and the citizen candidate model. In one-party equilibria, the median voter can be worse off than in all equilibria with two competing parties.

Suggested Citation

  • Emanuel Hansen, 2021. "Political Competition with Endogenous Party Formation and Citizen Activists," CESifo Working Paper Series 9374, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9374
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp9374.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Campante, Filipe R., 2011. "Redistribution in a model of voting and campaign contributions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 646-656, August.
    2. Levy, Gilat, 2004. "A model of political parties," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 115(2), pages 250-277, April.
    3. John E. Roemer, 2003. "Indeterminacy of Citizen-Candidate Equilibrium," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1410, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    4. Panu Poutvaara & Tuomas Takalo, 2007. "Candidate quality," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 14(1), pages 7-27, February.
    5. Massimo Morelli, 2004. "Party Formation and Policy Outcomes under Different Electoral Systems," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(3), pages 829-853.
    6. Andrei Gomberg & Francisco Marhuenda & Ignacio Ortuño-Ortín, 2004. "A model of endogenous political party platforms," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 24(2), pages 373-394, August.
    7. Martin J. Osborne & Al Slivinski, 1996. "A Model of Political Competition with Citizen-Candidates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(1), pages 65-96.
    8. Poutvaara, Panu, 2003. "Party Platforms with Endogenous Party Membership," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 117(1-2), pages 79-98, October.
    9. 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.
    10. Pech, Gerald, 2012. "Intra-party decision making, party formation, and moderation in multiparty systems," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 14-22.
    11. Francesco De sinopoli & Alessandro Turrini, 2002. "A Remark on Voters’ Rationality in a Model of Representative Democracy," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 4(2), pages 163-170, April.
    12. Valerio Dotti, 2021. "Reaching across the aisle to block reforms," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 72(2), pages 533-578, September.
    13. Campante, Filipe Robin, 2011. "Redistribution in a model of voting and campaign contributions," Scholarly Articles 34310047, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    14. Brett, Craig & Weymark, John A., 2017. "Voting over selfishly optimal nonlinear income tax schedules," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 172-188.
    15. Roemer John E, 2006. "Party Competition under Private and Public Financing: A Comparison of Institutions," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-31, April.
    16. John Cadigan & Eckhard Janeba, 2002. "A Citizen-Candidate Model with Sequential Elections," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 14(4), pages 387-407, October.
    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. Hansen, Emanuel, 2016. "Political Competition with Endogenous Party Formation and Citizen Activists," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145923, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Mattozzi, Andrea & Merlo, Antonio, 2008. "Political careers or career politicians?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 597-608, April.
    3. Antonio Merlo, 2005. "Whither Political Economy? Theories, Facts and Issues," PIER Working Paper Archive 05-033, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 01 Dec 2005.
    4. Leonardo Felli & Antonio Merlo, 2006. "Endogenous Lobbying," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(1), pages 180-215, March.
    5. Mattozzi, Andrea & Snowberg, Erik, 2018. "The right type of legislator: A theory of taxation and representation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 54-65.
    6. Julián Costas-Fernández & Simón Lodato, 2022. "Inequality, poverty and the composition of redistribution," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 59(4), pages 925-967, November.
    7. Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay & Mandar Oak, 2022. "Party Formation and Coalitional Bargaining in a Model of Proportional Representation," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-17, June.
    8. Panu Poutvaara & Tuomas Takalo, 2007. "Candidate quality," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 14(1), pages 7-27, February.
    9. Dotti, Valerio, 2019. "Political Parties and Policy Outcomes. Do Parties Block Reforms?," MPRA Paper 100227, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Levy, Gilat & Bandiera, Oriana, 2010. "Diversity and the Power of the Elites in Democratic Societies: A model and a test," CEPR Discussion Papers 7985, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Justin Buchler, 2011. "The proximity paradox: the legislative agenda and the electoral success of ideological extremists," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 148(1), pages 1-19, July.
    12. Peeters, R.J.A.P. & Saran, R.R.S. & Yüksel, A.M., 2010. "Strategic party formation on a circle," Research Memorandum 045, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    13. Dhillon, Amrita, 2003. "Political Parties and Coalition Formation," Economic Research Papers 269591, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    14. Jo Thori Lind & Dominic Rohner, 2017. "Knowledge is Power: A Theory of Information, Income and Welfare Spending," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 84(336), pages 611-646, October.
    15. Mattozzi, Andrea & Merlo, Antonio, 2015. "Mediocracy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 32-44.
    16. Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay & Kalyan Chatterjee & Tomas Sjöström, 2013. "Pre-electoral Coalitions and Post-election Bargaining," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Bargaining in the Shadow of the Market Selected Papers on Bilateral and Multilateral Bargaining, chapter 7, pages 129-181, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    17. Micael Castanheira & Benoît Crutzen & Nicolas Sahuguet, 2010. "The Impact of Party Organization on Electoral Outcomes," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 61(4), pages 677-695.
    18. Anesi, Vincent & De Donder, Philippe, 2007. "Party Formation and Racism," IDEI Working Papers 450, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    19. Bol, Damien & Matakos, Konstantinos & Troumpounis, Orestis & Xefteris, Dimitrios, 2019. "Electoral rules, strategic entry and polarization," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    20. Vincent Anesi & Philippe De Donder, 2009. "Party Formation and Minority Ideological Positions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(540), pages 1303-1323, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    elections; party formation; platform choice; electoral uncertainty;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    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:ces:ceswps:_9374. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    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.