The populists’ trap: mainstream responses to populist new parties are a threat to democracy

New populist and nativist parties have emerged in many western democracies as a response to large-scale economic transformations, argues Stephane Wolton. The reaction by established parties in trying to imitate their anti-immigrant policies have dangerous consequences for our democratic norms

Are biased media bad for democracy?

This article assesses the normative and positive claims regarding the consequences of biased media using a political agency framework that includes a strategic voter, polarized politicians, and news providers. My model predicts that voters are always better informed with unbiased than with biased outlets even when the latter have opposite ideological preferences. However, biased media may improve voter welfare. Contrary to several scholars' fears, partisan news providers are not always bad for democracy. My theoretical findings also have important implications for empirical analyses of the electoral consequences of changes in the media environment. The impact of left-wing and right-wing biased outlets depends on the partisan identity of officeholders. Empirical findings may, thus, not be comparable across studies or even over time within a study. Existing empirical works are unlikely to measure the consequences of biased media, as researchers never observe and can rarely approximate the adequate counterfactual: elections with unbiased news outlets

Political conflicts, the role of opposition parties, and the limits on taxation

In democratic systems, the rich have diverse channels through which they can influence policies. In a model of taxation, I study the capacity of the rich to constrain the fiscal choice of a government by starting a costly political conflict (for example, a press campaign), which imposes a cost on the government and influences the fate of the government’s fiscal plan. I show that the government’s tax proposal depends critically on the marginal disutility of taxation for the rich. This approach provides a new rationale for the empirically documented U-shaped relationship between inequality and taxation. It also highlights a new role for opposition parties. By agreeing to bear part of the cost of a political conflict in exchang

Lobbying, inside out: How special interest groups influence policy choices

Stephane Wolton has been awarded one of the three 2016 Young Economist Awards at the 31st Annual Meeting of the European Economic Association for his paper “Lobbying, Inside Out: How Special Interest Groups Influence Policy Choices.” In this blog post, Stephane describes his research project and what it entails for understanding the power of Special Interest Groups

To fight discrimination, first you must understand how to measure it

Racism is a thorny issue that is hard to measure objectively. Stephane Wolton considers the different approaches for adequately measuring discrimination and the importance of understanding what we gain and what we lose when we use one approach over another

Higher campaign costs are not necessarily bad for voters

The increasing cost of political campaigns and its impact on the electoral process are issues of paramount importance in modern democracies but higher campaign spending does not always hamper accountability, write Carlo Prato and Stephane Wolton. Drawing on recent research, they argue that when constituencies are biased towards a party, a higher campaign cost intensifies electoral competition, and is associated with a higher level of constituency service. Costly campaigns can thus have a rebalancing effect that improves electoral accountability

Campaign cost and electoral accountability

The increasing cost of political campaigns and its impact on the electoral process are issues of paramount importance in modern democracies. We propose a theory of electoral accountability in which candidates choose whether or not to commit to constituency service and whether or not to pay a campaign cost to advertise their platform. A higher campaign cost decreases voter welfare when partisan imbalance is low. However, when partisan imbalance is high, a higher campaign cost is associated with a higher expected level of constituency service. More costly campaigns can thus have a rebalancing effect that improves electoral accountability. We discuss the implications of our findings for campaign finance regulation and present empirical evidence consistent with our key predictions

Citizens united: a theoretical evaluation

The 2010 U.S. Supreme Court's decision on Citizens United v. FEC lifted restrictions on the funding by unions and corporations of groups engaging in independent political advertising (outside spending). Many have criticized the majority opinion's premise that outside spending cannot corrupt or distort the electoral process. Fewer have examined the implications of this decision under the Court's assumptions. Using a game-theoretic model of electoral competition, we show that informative outside spending by a group whose policy preferences are partially aligned with the electorate may reduce voter welfare. This negative effect is more likely when policy information is highly valuable for the electorate or congruence between the group and voters is high. We further show that the regulatory environment produced by the Court's decision is always suboptimal: the electorate would be better off if either groups were allowed to coordinated with candidates or if outside spending was banned altogether

The voters' curses: why we need Goldilocks voters

Scholars have long deplored voters' lack of interest in politics and argued in favor of greater political engagement. We present a formal theory of elections where successful communication of campaign messages requires both effort by candidates and attention from voters. Voters' interest in politics affects their attention, and impacts the effectiveness of the electoral process as a screening and disciplining device. In line with existing theories, there exists a curse of the uninterested voter: When voters have little interest in politics, the electoral process performs poorly, and voters' attention to politics is low. Surprisingly, we uncover a curse of the interested voter, by which the same happens when voters have a strong interest in politics. Our results highlight the importance of distinguishing between voters' interest and attention, two notions often conflated in empirical studies. Moreover, policy interventions aimed at subsidizing the cost of acquiring political information can have unintended consequences

Populism may well be inevitable in democracies, but it is also the cause of democratic disenchantment

Much has been written about populism and its move to the mainstream. Stephane Wolton and Carlo Prato argue that it has arisen, not so much from democratic dissatisfaction but from voters’ demands for reform, which leads politicians to engage opportunistically in a form of populism by campaigning on reformist agendas regardless of their ability to successfully carry them out