IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/wpaper/hal-00242944.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Ambiguity in electoral competition

Author

Listed:
  • Jean-François Laslier

    (CECO - Laboratoire d'économétrie de l'École polytechnique - X - École polytechnique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

The paper proposes a theory of ambiguous electoral competition. A platform is ambigous if voters may interpret it as different policy proposals. An ambiguous platform puts more or less emphasis on alternative policies so that it is more or less easily interpreted as one policy or the other. I suppose that a party can monitor exactly this platform design but cannot target its communications to individuals one by one. Each individual votes according to her understanding of the parties' platforms but dislikes ambiguity. It is shown that this electoral competition has no Nash equilibrium. Nevertheless its max-min strategies are the optimal strategies of the Downsian game in mixed strategies. Furthermore, if parties behave prudently enough and if the voters aversion to ambiguity is small enough, these strategies do form an equilibrium.

Suggested Citation

  • Jean-François Laslier, 2003. "Ambiguity in electoral competition," Working Papers hal-00242944, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-00242944
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-00242944
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-00242944/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Myerson, Roger B., 1993. "Incentives to Cultivate Favored Minorities Under Alternative Electoral Systems," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(4), pages 856-869, December.
    2. Kvasov, Dmitriy, 2007. "Contests with limited resources," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 738-748, September.
    3. Laffond, Gilbert & Laslier, Jean-Francois & Le Breton, Michel, 1997. "A Theorem on Symmetric Two-Player Zero-Sum Games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 426-431, February.
    4. Banks, Jeffrey S. & Duggan, John & Le Breton, Michel, 2002. "Bounds for Mixed Strategy Equilibria and the Spatial Model of Elections," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 88-105, March.
    5. Page, Benjamin I., 1976. "The Theory of Political Ambiguity," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 70(3), pages 742-752, September.
    6. Brams, Steven J. & Davis, Morton D., 1974. "The 3/2's Rule in Presidential Campaigning," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 68(1), pages 113-134, March.
    7. Alberto Alesina & Alex Cukierman, 1990. "The Politics of Ambiguity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(4), pages 829-850.
    8. Glazer, Amihai, 1990. "The Strategy of Candidate Ambiguity," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 84(1), pages 237-241, March.
    9. Roger B. Myerson, 1999. "Nash Equilibrium and the History of Economic Theory," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(3), pages 1067-1082, September.
    10. Gilbert Laffond & Jean-François Laslier & Michel Breton, 2000. "K–Player Additive Extension of Two-Player games with an Application to the Borda Electoral Competition Game," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 129-137, March.
    11. Bhaskar Dutta & Jean-Francois Laslier, 1999. "Comparison functions and choice correspondences," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 16(4), pages 513-532.
    12. Aragones, Enriqueta & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2002. "Mixed Equilibrium in a Downsian Model with a Favored Candidate," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 131-161, March.
    13. McKelvey, Richard D., 1976. "Intransitivities in multidimensional voting models and some implications for agenda control," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 472-482, June.
    14. Jean-FranÚois Laslier, 2000. "Interpretation of electoral mixed strategies," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 17(2), pages 283-292.
    15. Fishburn, Peter C., 1972. "Lotteries and social choices," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 189-207, October.
    16. Laslier, Jean-Francois & Picard, Nathalie, 2002. "Distributive Politics and Electoral Competition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 106-130, March.
    17. Nicola Persico & Alessandro Lizzeri, 2001. "The Provision of Public Goods under Alternative Electoral Incentives," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 225-239, March.
    18. Nicolas Sahuguet & Nicola Persico, 2006. "Campaign spending regulation in a model of redistributive politics," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 28(1), pages 95-124, May.
    19. Marinacci, Massimo, 2000. "Ambiguous Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 191-219, May.
    20. Richard Zeckhauser, 1969. "Majority Rule with Lotteries on Alternatives," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 83(4), pages 696-703.
    21. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65, pages 135-135.
    22. André Blais & Pierre Martin & Richard Nadeau, 1998. "Can People Explain Their Own Vote? Introspective Questions as Indicators of Salience in the 1995 Quebec Referendum on Sovereignty," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 355-366, November.
    23. Enriqueta Aragonés & Andrew Postlewaite, 1999. "Ambiguity in election games," Economics Working Papers 364, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    24. Enriqueta Aragonés & Zvika Neeman, 1994. "Strategic ambiguity in electoral competition," Economics Working Papers 162, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Apr 1996.
    25. Richard McKelvey, 1980. "Ambiguity in spatial models of policy formation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 35(4), pages 385-402, January.
    26. Oriol Carbonell-Nicolau & Efe Ok, 2004. "Multidimensional income taxation and electoral competition: an equilibrium analysis," Departmental Working Papers 200407, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    27. Eichberger, Jurgen & Kelsey, David, 2000. "Non-Additive Beliefs and Strategic Equilibria," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 183-215, February.
    28. Philippe De Donder, 2000. "Majority voting solution concepts and redistributive taxation," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 17(4), pages 601-627.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ngoie, Ruffin-Benoit M., 2012. "Choix social et partage équitable : Une analyse mathématique a posteriori des élections législatives et présidentielles de 2006 et 2011 en RDC [Social choice and fair sharing: An a posteriori mathe," MPRA Paper 64915, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Burkhard Schipper & Hee Yeul Woo, 2012. "Political Awareness and Microtargeting of Voters in Electoral Competition," Working Papers 124, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    3. Schipper, Burkhard C. & Woo, Hee Yeul, 2019. "Political Awareness, Microtargeting of Voters, and Negative Electoral Campaigning," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 14(1), pages 41-88, January.
    4. Maarten C. W. Janssen & Mariya Teteryatnikova, 2015. "On the Positive Role of Negative Political Campaigning," Vienna Economics Papers 1506, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    5. Marcello Basili & Fulvio Fontini, 2007. "Constitutional Constraints Under Ambiguity: A Game-Theoretic Approach," International Game Theory Review (IGTR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 9(01), pages 59-66.
    6. Burkhard Schipper & Hee Yeul Woo, 2014. "Political Awareness, Microtargeting of Voters, and Negative Electoral Campaigning," Working Papers 148, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    7. Maarten C. W. Janssen & Mariya Teteryatnikova, 2015. "On the Positive Role of Negative Political Campaigning," Vienna Economics Papers vie1506, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    8. Vardan, Baghdasaryan & Elena, Manzoni, 2016. "Set them (almost) free. Discretion in electoral campaigns under asymmetric information," Working Papers 354, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised 13 Dec 2016.
    9. Burkhard Schipper & Hee Yeul Woo, 2012. "Political Awareness and Microtargeting of Voters in Electoral Competition," Working Papers 46, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    10. Maarten C. W. Janssen & Mariya Teteryatnikova, 2017. "Mystifying but not misleading: when does political ambiguity not confuse voters?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 172(3), pages 501-524, September.

    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. Jean-François Laslier, 2005. "Party Objectives in the “Divide a Dollar” Electoral Competition," Studies in Choice and Welfare, in: David Austen-Smith & John Duggan (ed.), Social Choice and Strategic Decisions, pages 113-130, Springer.
    2. Adam Meirowitz, 2005. "Keeping the other candidate guessing: Electoral competition when preferences are private information," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 122(3), pages 299-318, March.
    3. Bierbrauer, Felix J. & Boyer, Pierre C., 2013. "Political competition and Mirrleesian income taxation: A first pass," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 1-14.
    4. Oriol Carbonell-Nicolau & Efe Ok, 2004. "Multidimensional income taxation and electoral competition: an equilibrium analysis," Departmental Working Papers 200407, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    5. Caroline Thomas, 2018. "N-dimensional Blotto game with heterogeneous battlefield values," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(3), pages 509-544, May.
    6. Subhasish Chowdhury & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2013. "An experimental investigation of Colonel Blotto games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 52(3), pages 833-861, April.
    7. Dan Kovenock & Brian Roberson, 2008. "Electoral Poaching and Party Identification," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 20(3), pages 275-302, July.
    8. Dan Kovenock & Brian Roberson, 2021. "Generalizations of the General Lotto and Colonel Blotto games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(3), pages 997-1032, April.
    9. Callander, Steven & Wilson, Catherine H., 2008. "Context-dependent voting and political ambiguity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 565-581, April.
    10. Burkhard Schipper & Hee Yeul Woo, 2012. "Political Awareness and Microtargeting of Voters in Electoral Competition," Working Papers 46, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    11. Carbonell-Nicolau, Oriol & Ok, Efe A., 2007. "Voting over income taxation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 249-286, May.
    12. Schipper, Burkhard C. & Woo, Hee Yeul, 2019. "Political Awareness, Microtargeting of Voters, and Negative Electoral Campaigning," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 14(1), pages 41-88, January.
    13. Matias Nunez, 2007. "Tax avoidance and the political appeal of progressivity," Working Papers hal-00243060, HAL.
    14. Maarten C. W. Janssen & Mariya Teteryatnikova, 2017. "Mystifying but not misleading: when does political ambiguity not confuse voters?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 172(3), pages 501-524, September.
    15. Yasushi Asako, 2019. "Strategic Ambiguity with Probabilistic Voting," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 31(4), pages 626-641, October.
    16. LASLIER, Jean-François & PICARD, Nathalie, 2000. "Distributive politics: does electoral competition promote inequality ?," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2000022, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    17. Banks, Jeffrey S. & Duggan, John & Le Breton, Michel, 2006. "Social choice and electoral competition in the general spatial model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 126(1), pages 194-234, January.
    18. Burkhard Schipper & Hee Yeul Woo, 2014. "Political Awareness, Microtargeting of Voters, and Negative Electoral Campaigning," Working Papers 148, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    19. Burkhard Schipper & Hee Yeul Woo, 2012. "Political Awareness and Microtargeting of Voters in Electoral Competition," Working Papers 124, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    20. Thomas Jensen, 2009. "Projection effects and strategic ambiguity in electoral competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 141(1), pages 213-232, October.

    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:hal:wpaper:hal-00242944. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.