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may_increased_partianship_23_11_09
Journal article

May increased partisanship lead to convergence of parties' policy platforms?

BP2-STS

  • 2010
Published in:
  • Public Choice. - Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2010, vol. 145, p. 547-569
Convergence
Ideology; Median voter
Two-party competition
Voting
Economics and Econometrics
Sociology and Political Science
English Parties face a trade-off between motivating partisans to participate in the election and appealing to issue-oriented middle-of-the-road voters. We show that, consequently, parties may diverge from the median voters’ preferred policy by sending ambiguous messages to voters which include announcements of alternative platforms. Moreover, surprisingly, an increase in the size of a partisan constituency may lead to platform convergence towards the median voters’ preferred policy. We identify two conditions for this outcome. First, the electorate is sufficiently divided such that full convergence does not occur and, second, the majority of the non-partisan voters is more inclined to the party with increased support of partisans.
Faculty
Faculté des sciences économiques et sociales et du management
Department
Département d'économie politique
Language
  • English
Classification
Economics
License
Rights reserved
Open access status
green
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://folia.unifr.ch/unifr/documents/322688
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