Abstract
The spatial voting theory literature has generally focused on either parties or candidates as the unit of analysis and ignored strategic interactions between them. I study a game theoretic spatial model of elections with many heterogeneous constituencies in which both party and candidate behavior are modeled. Parties choose a platform and a ‘whip rate,’ representing the proportion of final policy that will be made by the party, as opposed to by the successful candidates. Candidates are office-motivated and can choose both a platform and a level of advertising in order to defeat their opponent. It is shown that the introduction of whipping as a choice variable can cause party platforms to diverge and that parties will whip on some but not all issues, reflecting the empirical reality of parties influencing rather than determining policy outcomes exclusively. Further, parties respond to sharper voter polarization by reducing the power of the whip as well as distinguishing their platforms from one another, while more voter uncertainty has the opposite effect. Other real-world phenomena, including ‘safe seats’ and legislators voting with their party even when unwhipped, are also shown to be predicted by the model.
Highlights
In the classic Hotelling–Downs model (Hotelling 1929; Downs 1957) of elections, two parties or candidates who care only about winning the election compete over a spectrum of voters in a single district, and equilibrium emerges when both position themselves at the median voter’s location
I argue in the conclusion that, in a number of respects, this model predicts electoral phenomena which are mirrored in the real world: party platform divergence and parties whipping some but not all policy, and the existence of both ‘safe’ seats to which incumbents are reelected with certainty and other seats to which they are not, and legislators who tend to vote somewhat in line with their party’s ideology even in free votes
: Theorem 2 If the equilibrium is E1, the candidate in whose favor the election is uncontested will win with certainty, unless the election is uncontested in the favor of both candidates, in which case each wins with probability 12
Summary
In the classic Hotelling–Downs model (Hotelling 1929; Downs 1957) of elections, two parties or candidates who care only about winning the election compete over a spectrum of voters in a single district, and equilibrium emerges when both position themselves at the median voter’s location. The existence of whipping means that voters know that if they elect a candidate of a given party, the agenda of that party is more likely to be successful This means that the party’s platform, as well as the candidate’s platform, is relevant to their decision making. I argue in the conclusion that, in a number of respects, this model predicts electoral phenomena which are mirrored in the real world: party platform divergence and parties whipping some but not all policy, and the existence of both ‘safe’ seats to which incumbents are reelected with certainty and other seats to which they are not, and legislators who tend to vote somewhat in line with their party’s ideology even in free votes.
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