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Cycles in Public Opinion and the Dynamics of Stable Party Systems

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  • Sandro Brusco
  • Jaideep Roy

Abstract

We study a dynamic model of elections where many parties may enter or exit political competition. At each election a new political leadership arrives for each party. The leadership cannot choose the party's platform (ideological identities are fixed) but must decide whether or not to contest the election. Contesting elections is costly and this cost is higher if the party has recently been inactive. The distribution of voters' ideal policies, or public opinion, changes over time via a Markov process with a state independent persistence parameter. We characterise stable party systems where the set of contestants is invariant to the recent most observed opinion. We show that stable party systems exist only when public opinion is sufficiently volatile, while highly persistent moods lead to instability and change in the party system whenever public opinion changes.
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Suggested Citation

  • Sandro Brusco & Jaideep Roy, 2015. "Cycles in Public Opinion and the Dynamics of Stable Party Systems," Department of Economics Working Papers 15-04, Stony Brook University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:nys:sunysb:15-04
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. David Byers & James Davidson & David Peel, 1997. "Modelling Political Popularity: an Analysis of Long‐range Dependence in Opinion Poll Series," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 160(3), pages 471-490, September.
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    7. Budge, Ian, 1994. "A New Spatial Theory of Party Competition: Uncertainty, Ideology and Policy Equilibria Viewed Comparatively and Temporally," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(4), pages 443-467, October.
    8. Jean Guillaume Forand & John Duggan, 2013. "Markovian Elections," Working Papers 1305, University of Waterloo, Department of Economics, revised Oct 2013.
    9. Merrill, Samuel & Grofman, Bernard & Brunell, Thomas L., 2008. "Cycles in American National Electoral Politics, 1854–2006: Statistical Evidence and an Explanatory Model," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 102(1), pages 1-17, February.
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    2. Paolo Balduzzi & Sandro Brusco, 2019. "Proportional Systems with Free Entry. A Citizen-Candidate Model," Department of Economics Working Papers 19-01, Stony Brook University, Department of Economics.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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