Parties as Utility Maximizers

Abstract

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.

Determinants of Redistributive Politics: An Empirical Analysis of Land Reforms in West Bengal, India

“…In contrast, ideology-based theories of politics which trace their origin to Lipset (1960) and Wittman (1973) have recently received prominence in citizen-candidate models of Osborne and Slivinski (1996) and Besley and Coate (1997). Combined with the assumption that candidates cannot commit to their policy platforms in advance of elections, and that they ignore implications of current policy choices for future re-election prospects, such a theory implies that policy choices of elected candidates are entirely 'ideology' determined.…”

Political Competition and the (In)Effectiveness of Redistribution in a Federation

“…Wittman (1973Wittman ( , 1983 argues that parties might be controlled by some coalition of voters of the electorate. Because voters have preferences over economic policies, parties want to design and implement the policy on local public goods that maximizes the preferences of the representative coalition of voters controlling the party.…”

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“…Or, more successfully, the second party could stake an ideological position slightly to the right of A, thereby appealing 15 Several public choice models have relaxed the assumption that candidates have no preferences over policy (independent of the median voter). See, for example, Wittman (1973) and, Kollman, Miller and Page (1992), and Poole and Romer (1985). 16 Formal proofs of the median voter theorem can be found from a variety of sources.…”