Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP8941
Authors: Simon P. Anderson; Kieron J. Meagher
Abstract: We introduce endogenous political parties into the Hotelling-Downs voting framework to model the selection of candidates. First, activists choose which party to join, if at all. Second, party members select a champion for the general election. Third, the electorate median voter determines the (stochastic) general election outcome. Although party members trade off win probabilities candidate location preferences, in equilibrium they vote sincerely, so champions are at party medians. Minimum differentiation is only attained when valence uncertainty vanishes. Otherwise, the electorate median voter is in neither party. Despite asymmetric party and policy positions in equilibrium, electoral successes remain roughly equal.
Keywords: Activism; Endogenous Activism; Political Parties; Spatial Voting; Valence
JEL Codes: D71; D72
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| party membership (D71) | candidate selection (D79) |
| candidate selection (D79) | electoral outcomes (K16) |
| party membership (D71) | electoral competitiveness of candidates (D79) |
| preferences of electoral median voter (D79) | electoral outcomes (K16) |
| valence uncertainty (D80) | clustering of party candidates around extreme positions (D79) |
| clustering of party candidates around extreme positions (D79) | distance from median voter (D79) |