Party policy and campaign costs in a multi-constituency model of electoral competition

Abstract

In this essay, a multi-constituency model of electoral competition was developed under the assumption that party candidates possessed no effective autonomy. Such a model describes the polar extreme opposite that of the more common single constituency framework, in which candidates have complete autonomy. The existence of a Nash equilibrium to the multi-constituency election game was established under the assumption that parties maximize the expected number of winning seats or behaved as pure independents. Under any other reasonable election goal (e.g., maximize probability of winning a majority of constituencies), this existence breaks down. The nature of any equilibrium was investigated in some detail and the influence of campaign costs — both statutory and non-statutory — on party behaviour analysed. This was found to be qualitatively important. In particular, differingeconomic resources between parties is sufficient to prevent convergence inpolicy space.