A formal model of electoral behavior is developed under the assumption that candidates have policy preferences as well as an interest in winning per se. This model is shown to have an equilibrium in a k-issue space when there are two candidates. The implications of this model are compared to the implications of the Downsian-type model where candidates are interested only in winning. Testable propositions are derived via the use of comparative statics. The results of recent studies are shown to coincide with the synthesis model but not the pure Downsian model.The theoretical model bridges the gap between formal theory and empirical research and unifies a variety of seemingly unrelated studies.
By applying the standard tools of macroeconomic analysis, I argue that democratic markets work as well as economic markets. In particular, I show that previous work has greatly exaggerated the existence of principal-agent and informational problems in electoral markets and has drawn incorrect conclusions. Many controversies in the social sciences are ultimately arguments over the nature of the market. For example, Marxist sociologists believe that both economic and political markets are characterized by poorly informed, possibly irrational, consumers and voters being exploited by monopolist suppliers of goods and policy, while (conservative) economists tend to view economic markets as working well (on the efficiency dimension) and political markets as being inefficient because of monopoly, rent seeking, and poorly informed voters. Here I argue that political and economic markets both work well.' I show that democratic political markets are organized to promote wealth-I would like to thank the editor and the referee for their extremely helpful comments, Brian Barry, John R. Lott, Jr., and participants at seminars given at Claremont and University of California at Los Angeles and at Santa Cruz. ' This possibility appears to have been, for the most part, overlooked. Adam Smith's (1776) most famous passages regarding government are negative, but he did argue that governments would pursue their behavior effectively. McKean (1965) argued that the invisible hand operated in the political sector but claimed that political externalities would cause political market failure. Tiebout (1956) claimed that competition among localities creates efficient local governments but did not believe that his model applied to national governments. Becker (1983) showed that there will be a tendency for wealth-maximizing outcomes to arise from pressure group behavior, but elsewhere in his article he argued that political markets are very imperfect. Thus some authors have made positive remarks about the efficacy of political markets, but such remarks are hidden in works that are overwhelmingly critical.
The article introduces two models of political party decision making. Both models assume that the parties are solely interested in policy and that winning the election is just a means to that end. In one, the parties are competitive, while in the other the parties collude. The main result, in either case, is that the parties tend to be unresponsive to the interests of the voters.The models are analyzed in an intransitive case (an election concerned only with income distribution) and a transitive one (an election where all political attitudes can be put on a left-right continuum), and under the assumptions of perfect and imperfect information.With perfect information the intransitive case results in the parties ending up with all the income; while in the single peaked case neither party will have a position to the left (right) of the left (right) party's most preferred position whatever the attitudes of the voters.Finally it is shown that it is rational for the parties to collude and present similar platforms.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.