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Electoral Competition through Issue Selection

Author

Listed:
  • Aragonés, Enriqueta
  • Castanheira, Micael
  • Giani, Marco

Abstract

Politics must tackle multiple issues at once. In a first-best world, political competition constrains parties to prioritize issues according to the voters' true concerns. In the real world, the opposite also happens: parties manipulate voter priorities by emphasizing issues selectively during the political campaign. This phenomenon, known as priming, should allow parties to pay less attention to the issues that they intend to mute. We develop a model of endogenous issue ownership in which two vote-seeking parties (i) invest to attract voters with "better" policy proposals and (ii) choose a communication campaign to focus voter attention on specific issues. We identify novel feedbacks between communication and investment. In particular, we find that stronger priming effects can backfire by constraining parties to invest more resources in all issues, including the ones they would otherwise intend to mute. We also identify under which conditions parties prefer to focus on their "historical issues" or to engage in issue stealing. Typically, the latter happens when priming effects are strong, and historical reputations differentiates parties less.

Suggested Citation

  • Aragonés, Enriqueta & Castanheira, Micael & Giani, Marco, 2012. "Electoral Competition through Issue Selection," CEPR Discussion Papers 9012, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9012
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Electoral competition; Issue selection and ownership; Party strategy; Priming; Salience;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government

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