Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP15971
Authors: Jerome Gonnot; Paul Seabright
Abstract: This paper explores why voters might vote for candidates who espouse extreme policies that voters do not support or behave in ways that they do not approve. We develop a model in which these policies and behaviors serve as signals that the candidates are outsiders to the political establishment, and therefore more likely than Establishment candidates to implement economic policies that are congruent with voters' interests. Establishment candidates seeking election may therefore choose an extreme social platform or indulge in offensive behavior for \textit{populist} reasons - that is, as a way of signaling independence from the interests of the Establishment. This populist strategy is more likely when the value of social policies as signals of future economic policy outweighs their value as signals of future social policies, when voters' trust in economic and social policy announcements is low, when the cost for candidates of breaking campaign promises once elected is low, and when there exist few alternative ways for the voters to predict future policies. We present empirical support from the US and Europe for the main prediction of the model that liberal voters are more likely to vote for social outsiders when they have lower levels of trust in politicians.
Keywords: populism; median voter model
JEL Codes: D72; D78; D81
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| candidates' extreme ideologies or offensive behaviors (P37) | voter trust (K16) |
| voter trust (K16) | likelihood of supporting outsider candidates (D79) |
| low trust in political institutions (D72) | support for socially extreme candidates (D79) |
| perceived low cost for candidates to break campaign promises (D72) | likelihood of supporting socially extreme candidates (D79) |
| limited alternative means to gauge future policy directions (E69) | likelihood of supporting socially extreme candidates (D79) |
| lower political trust (D72) | higher probability of voting for outsider candidates (D72) |