IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/8941.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Choosing a Champion: Party Membership and Policy Platform

Author

Listed:
  • Anderson, Simon
  • Meagher, Kieron J

Abstract

We introduce endogenous political parties into the Hotelling-Downs voting framework to model the selection of candidates. First, activists choose which party to join, if at all. Second, party members select a champion for the general election. Third, the electorate median voter determines the (stochastic) general election outcome. Although party members trade off win probabilities candidate location preferences, in equilibrium they vote sincerely, so champions are at party medians. Minimum differentiation is only attained when valence uncertainty vanishes. Otherwise, the electorate median voter is in neither party. Despite asymmetric party and policy positions in equilibrium, electoral successes remain roughly equal.

Suggested Citation

  • Anderson, Simon & Meagher, Kieron J, 2012. "Choosing a Champion: Party Membership and Policy Platform," CEPR Discussion Papers 8941, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8941
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP8941
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bulkley, George & Myles, Gareth D & Pearson, Bernard R, 2001. "On the Membership of Decision-Making Committees," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 106(1-2), pages 1-22, January.
    2. Edward L. Glaeser & Bruce Sacerdote & José A. Scheinkman, 1996. "Crime and Social Interactions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(2), pages 507-548.
    3. Mark Bagnoli & Ted Bergstrom, 2006. "Log-concave probability and its applications," Studies in Economic Theory, in: Charalambos D. Aliprantis & Rosa L. Matzkin & Daniel L. McFadden & James C. Moore & Nicholas C. Yann (ed.), Rationality and Equilibrium, pages 217-241, Springer.
    4. Wittman, Donald, 1983. "Candidate Motivation: A Synthesis of Alternative Theories," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(1), pages 142-157, March.
    5. Gilles Serra, 2011. "Why primaries? The party’s tradeoff between policy and valence," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 23(1), pages 21-51, January.
    6. Stephen Ansolabehere & John M. de Figueiredo & James M. Snyder Jr, 2003. "Why is There so Little Money in U.S. Politics?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 105-130, Winter.
    7. Kosuke Imai, 2005. "Do get-out-the-vote calls reduce turnout? The importance of statistical methods for field experiments," Natural Field Experiments 00272, The Field Experiments Website.
    8. 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.
    9. Baron, David P., 1993. "Government Formation and Endogenous Parties," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(1), pages 34-47, March.
    10. Imai, Kosuke, 2005. "Do Get-Out-the-Vote Calls Reduce Turnout? The Importance of Statistical Methods for Field Experiments," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 99(2), pages 283-300, May.
    11. An, Mark Yuying, 1998. "Logconcavity versus Logconvexity: A Complete Characterization," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 350-369, June.
    12. 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.
    13. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 1996. "Electoral Competition and Special Interest Politics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 63(2), pages 265-286.
    14. 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.
    15. Scott D. Watkins & Patrick L. Anderson, 2009. "Massachusetts," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Scott D. Watkins & Patrick L. Anderson (ed.), The State Economic Handbook 2010, pages 105-109, Palgrave Macmillan.
    16. Norman Schofield & Gary Miller, 2007. "Elections and Activist Coalitions in the United States," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(3), pages 518-531, July.
    17. Gerber, Alan S. & Green, Donald P. & Larimer, Christopher W., 2008. "Social Pressure and Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 102(1), pages 33-48, February.
    18. John E. Roemer, 2010. "Kantian Equilibrium," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 112(1), pages 1-24, March.
    19. Aldrich, John H., 1983. "A Downsian Spatial Model with Party Activism," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(4), pages 974-990, December.
    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. John Jackson, 2014. "Location, location, location: the Davis-Hinich model of electoral competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 197-218, April.
    4. Braendle, Thomas, 2013. "Do Institutions Affect Citizens' Selection into Politics?," Working papers 2013/04, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    5. Xavier Giné & Ghazala Mansuri, 2018. "Together We Will: Experimental Evidence on Female Voting Behavior in Pakistan," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 207-235, January.
    6. Zakharov Alexei, 2005. "Candidate location and endogenous valence," EERC Working Paper Series 05-17e, EERC Research Network, Russia and CIS.
    7. Pereira dos Santos, João & Tavares, José & Vicente, Pedro C., 2021. "Can ATMs get out the vote? Evidence from a nationwide field experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    8. Dan Bernhardt & Peter Buisseret & Sinem Hidir, 2020. "The Race to the Base," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(3), pages 922-942, March.
    9. 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.
    10. Raghul S. Venkatesh, 2020. "Political activism and polarization," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(5), pages 1530-1558, September.
    11. , & ,, 2006. "Group formation and voter participation," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 1(4), pages 461-487, December.
    12. Alan E. Wiseman, 2006. "A Theory of Partisan Support and Entry Deterrence in Electoral Competition," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 18(2), pages 123-158, April.
    13. Francisco Martínez-Mora & M. Socorro Puy, 2009. "Off-the-peak preferences over government size," Working Papers 2009-9, Universidad de Málaga, Department of Economic Theory, Málaga Economic Theory Research Center.
    14. Juan Carlos Berganza, 1998. "Relationships Between Politicians and Voters Through Elections: A Review Essay," Working Papers wp1998_9809, CEMFI.
    15. Thomas Braendle & Alois Stutzer, 2017. "Voters and Representatives: How Should Representatives Be Selected?," CREMA Working Paper Series 2017-05, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    16. Benoît Le Maux, 2009. "Governmental behavior in representative democracy: a synthesis of the theoretical literature," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 447-465, December.
    17. 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.
    18. Zudenkova, Galina, 2010. "Sincere Lobby Formation," Working Papers 2072/151545, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    19. Bekkouche, Yasmine & Cagé, Julia & Dewitte, Edgard, 2022. "The heterogeneous price of a vote: Evidence from multiparty systems, 1993–2017," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    20. JuanD. Carrillo & Micael Castanheira, 2008. "Information and Strategic Political Polarisation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(530), pages 845-874, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Activism; Endogenous activism; Political parties; Spatial voting; Valence;
    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:cpr:ceprdp:8941. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.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.