Electoral competition in a multidimensional political arena - parallel moves instead of convergence in policy platforms

This paper provides a theoretical model of electoral competition in a multidimensional political arena with a heterogenous electorate and politically active interest groups. The emerging pattern of movement in policy platforms is fundamentally different to the concept of convergence proposed by the spatial theory of voting. Rather than the centre of the scale of policy preference, its extreme ends, occupied by dominant-issue-voters and interest groups, attract the policy platforms. The platforms move in parallel instead of towards each other, while the difference in policy platforms is reduced only under certain conditions. --voters,interest groups,ideology,political parties,convergence

A Probabilistic Voting Model of Progressive Taxation with Incentive Effects

This paper shows conditions under which a marginally progressive income tax emerges as the outcome of political competition between two parties, when labor is elastically supplied and candidates are uncertain about voters' choice at election day. Assuming the elasticity of labor is decreasing on marginal wage; following Coughlin and Nitzan (1981) only marginal progressive taxes are played by both candidates in equilibrium. If; instead, we adopt Lindbeck and Weibull (1989) probabilistic voting model, the equilibrium tax schedule will be progressive as long as the political power of the rich voter is sufficiently small. The degree of progressivity decreases with population polarization.Political economy, progressive taxation, elastic labor supply.

The fragmented Lok Sabha: a case for electoral engineering

Where there are numerous small political parties, as in India, the electoral system neither reflects the true views and opinions on important social and economic issues nor does it incorporate “social inclusiveness” . The fragmentation in our legislature can be corrected through appropriate electoral engineering. This study is an attempt to do so. It describes how the composition of the Lok Sabha has changed since 1967, paying particular attention to the trends in indices of fragmentation. It also discusses issues relating to the “ideal” composition of a legislature and of a government

Decentralization as an incentive scheme when regional differences are large

It has been suggested that large regional differences could be an obstacle to that part of the political accountability of office-holders which is based on yardstick competition among governments. The paper addresses that question and concludes that the obstacle is not too serious in general. The second part of the paper is devoted to the persistent economic underperformance of some regions in countries such as Germany, Italy and (with regard to regions overseas) France. How is it that the mechanism of yardstick competition induces a convergence of economic performance among European Union member countries, even those particularly poor initially, but fails to induce all the underperforming regions of these countries to catch up? A small model is used to explore that question. In the case of the persistently underperforming regions, it turns out that the degree of regional differentiation is not sufficient for yardstick competition to work and bring about an improvement in performance. The yardstick competition framework remains useful if it helps to understand more clearly why this is so.yardstick competition;political competition;regional development

Organized for parliament? Explaining the electoral success of radical right parties in post-communist Europe

Over the last three decades a great deal of research has been carried out in an attempt to explain the electoral performance of radical right parties in Europe. Most approaches concentrate on demand-side determinants and have some limitations. We compensate for these shortcomings and focus on the context of party competition and supply-side determinants (consistency of ideological discourse, functioning party propaganda, the continuity of the leader in office and strong party organization) to explain the electoral success of radical right parties in post-communist Europe. We conducted our analysis at party level in nine radical right parties in four countries from Central and Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania) between 1990 and 2014. The bivariate and multivariate (ordinal logistic regression) analyses draw on unique data collected from primary and secondary sources

Party platforms in electoral competition with heterogeneous constituencies

This paper shows how political parties differentiate to reduce electoral competition. Two parties choose platforms in a unidimensional policy space, and then candidates from these parties compete for votes in a continuum of constituencies with different median voters. Departing from their parties' platforms is costly enough that candidates do not take the median voter's preferred position in every constituency. Because the candidate whose party is located closer to the median voter gets a higher expected payoff, parties acting in their candidates' best interests differentiate---when one party locates right of center, the other prefers to locate strictly left of center to carve out a "home turf,'' constituencies that can be won with little to no deviation from the platform of the candidate's party. Hence, competition that pulls candidates together pushes parties apart. Decreasing "campaign costs'' increases party differentiation as the leftist party must move further from the rightist party to carve out its home turf, as does increasing heterogeneity across constituencies.Political parties, median voter, Hotelling competition

Adapt or perish? How parties respond to party system saturation in 21 Western democracies, 1945–2011

This study examines whether (and how) parties adapt to party system saturation (PSS). A party system is oversaturated when a higher effective number of parties contests elections than predicted. Previous research has shown that parties are more likely to exit when party systems are oversaturated. This article examines whether parties will adapt by increasing the nicheness of their policy platform, by forming electoral alliances or by merging. Based on time-series analyses of 522 parties contesting 357 elections in twenty-one established Western democracies between 1945 and 2011, the study finds that parties are more likely to enter – and less likely to leave – electoral alliances if PSS increases. Additionally, a small share of older parties will merge. The results highlight parties’ limited capacity to adapt to their environments, which has important implications for the literature on party (system) change and models of electoral competition

Political Competition (A theory with applications to the distribution of income)

The formal model of political competition almost ubiquitously employed by students of political economy is one in which political parties play no role. That model, introduced by Anthony Downs (1957) over forty years ago, portrays a competition between candidates, whose sole motivation for engaging in politics is to enjoy the power and perquisites of office holding. Although voters care about policies, the candidates do not; for them, a policy is simply an instrument to be used, opportunistically, as an entry ticket to a prosperous career. Political parties, however, have, throughout the history of democracy, cared about policies, perhaps because they are formed by interest groups of citizens. Therefore the Downsian model cannot be viewed as an historically accurate model of party competition.

A probabilistic voting model of progressive taxation with incentive effects

The purpose of this work is to show under what conditions a marginally progressive income tax emerges as the result of political competition between two parties when labor is elastically supplied and candidates are uncertain about voters' decisions on election day. Assuming a decreasing wage elasticity of labor supply, if we follow Coughlin and Nitzan (1981), only marginal-rate progressive taxes are chosen by both candidates in equilibrium. If, instead, we adopt Lindbeck and Weibull’s (1987) probabilistic voting model, the equilibrium tax schedule will be progressive as long as the political power of the rich voter is sufficiently low. The degree of progressivity decreases with population polarization.Political economy, progressive taxation, elastic labor supply