Electoral Competition through Issue Selection

Abstract

Politics must address multiple problems simultaneously. In an ideal world, political competition would force parties to adopt priorities that reflect the voters' true concerns. In reality, parties can run their campaigns in such a way as to manipulate voters' priorities. This phenomenon, known as priming, may allow parties to underinvest in solving the issues that they intend to mute. We develop a model of endogenous issue ownership in which two vote‐seeking parties (a) invest in policy quality to increase the value of their platform and (b) choose a communication strategy to prime voters. We identify novel feedback between communication and investment. In particular, we find that stronger priming effects can constrain parties to invest more resources in all issues. We also identify the conditions under which parties prefer to focus on their “historical issues” or to engage in “issue stealing.”

A Theory of Communication in Political Campaigns

“…At first glance, it seems intuitive that a candidate puts the highest emphasis on the issues in which he is perceived competent and less on others. This intuition is again in line with the dominance principle and also with the models of Amorós and Puy (2013) or Aragonès, Castanheira, and Giani (2014). In the present model this turns out to be different: Aragonès, Castanheira, and Giani (2014) come to a similar finding if one restricts focus to pure strategy equilibria.…”

“…6 }, such that candidate 1 is weakly better than his opponent in all issues, we get σ 1 = − 1 6 , σ 2 = 0, and σ 3 = This definition of comparative advantage is therefore different from the one in Amorós and Puy (2013) and Aragonès, Castanheira, and Giani (2014), which only takes into account information about relative competence levels. Pre-campaigning comparative advantages are defined in a similar way and I useσ i instead of σ i .…”

“…This issue priming effect has been studied extensively and lies at the heart of most campaigning models, e.g. Amorós and Puy (2013) and Aragonès, Castanheira, and Giani (2014). 11 With ω i v being a voter's importance belief of issue i, priming leads to a reassessment of issues' relative importance.…”

“…Iyengar and Kinder (1987), Druckman, Jacobs, and Ostermeier (2004), Amorós andPuy (2013), or Aragonès, Castanheira, andGiani (2014).…”

“…For example, Krasa and Polborn (2010b) develop a formal model in which candidates differ in their productivity to produce certain public goods and show how this leads to policy divergence. Aragonès, Castanheira, and Giani (2014) model a two stage competition between candidates with issue specific abilities who can prime issues in the campaign, and study the repercussions of campaigning behavior for investment in platform quality. In contrast to these papers, the focus here is not the emergence of issue ownership and policy platforms, but the consequences of issue ownership for campaigning.…”