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Political Support and Candidate Choice

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Author Info

  • Hannes Mueller

    () (STICERD, London School of Economics)

Abstract

This paper proposes a simple model of political supporters in an environment of spatial political competition. We assume that supporters are driven by sympathy for a candidate with similar preferences on their side of the policy space and by fear of a candidate with different preferences on the other side. If parties maximize support in their candidate selection, political platforms can diverge significantly. We show that radical candidates have a positive effect on support for the other party. If candidate choice internalizes this externality, platforms converge and overall support decreases to a minimum.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by JEPS in its series JEPS Working Papers with number 07-002.

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Length: 23 pages
Date of creation: May 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:jep:wpaper:07002

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Web page: http://jeps.repec.org/

Related research

Keywords: Party competition; activism; conflict;

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References

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  1. Osborne, Martin J & Slivinski, Al, 1996. "A Model of Political Competition with Citizen-Candidates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 111(1), pages 65-96, February.
  2. Francesco Caselli & Massimo Morelli, 2000. "Bad politicians," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 134, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
  3. Timothy J. Feddersen, 2004. "Rational Choice Theory and the Paradox of Not Voting," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(1), pages 99-112, Winter.
  4. Edward L. Glaeser & Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2004. "Strategic Extremism: Why Republicans and Democrats Divide on Religious Values," NBER Working Papers 10835, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  5. Tim Besley & Stephen Coate, . "An Economic Model of Representative Democracy," Penn CARESS Working Papers ecf70d639d700dba5327ab0c8, Penn Economics Department.
  6. Besley, Tim & Ghatak, Maitreesh, 2005. "Competition and incentives with motivated agents," Open Access publications from London School of Economics and Political Science http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/, London School of Economics and Political Science.
  7. John E. Roemer, 2004. "Modeling Party Competition in General Elections," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1488, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
  8. Barry Nalebuff & Ron Shachar, 1999. "Follow the Leader: Theory and Evidence on Political Participation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 525-547, June.
  9. 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.
  10. Gene Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 1994. "Electoral Competition and Special Interest Politics," NBER Working Papers 4877, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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Cited by:
  1. Nicolas-Guillaume Martineau, 2012. "The Influence of Special Interests and Party Activists on Electoral Competition," CESifo Working Paper Series 3811, CESifo Group Munich.

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