Bandwagon, underdog, and political competition: The uni-dimensional case

• 영문명: Bandwagon, underdog, and political competition: The uni-dimensional case
• 발행기관: 한국계량경제학회
• 저자명: Woojin Lee
• 간행물 정보: 『한국계량경제학회 학술대회 논문집』2008년 하계학술대회, 1~52쪽, 전체 52쪽
• 주제분류: 경제경영 > 경제학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2008.08.30

영문 초록

The present paper studies the effects of bandwagon and underdog on the political equilibrium of two-party competition models. We adapt for voter conformism the generalized Wittman-Roemer model of political competition, which views political competition as the one between parties with factions of the opportunists and the militants that Nash-bargain one another, and consider three special cases of the general model: the Hotelling-Downs model, the classical Wittman-Roemer model, and what we call the ideological-party model. In the Hotelling-Downs model, where the militants have no bargaining power in both parties, political parties put forth an identical policy at the equilibrium, regardless of the type of voter conformism, and this is the only equilibrium. Thus neither bandwagon nor underdog has any effect on the Hotelling-Downs political equilibrium. In both the ideological-party and classical Wittman-Roemer models, parties propose differentiated policies at the equilibrium, and the extent of policy differentiation depends on the degree of voter conformism. In these models, multiple equilibria generically exist when the bandwagon effect is sufficiently strong. We characterize the relationship between the extent of voter conformism and equilibrium party platforms in dynamically stable equilibria of these models.

목차

1. Introduction

2. The model

3. The Hotelling-Downs model of political competition when voter conformism is present

4. The ideological-party equilibrium with voter conformism

5. Voter conformism and the classical Wittman-Roemer model of political competition

6. Conclusion

키워드

bandwagon underdog Nash-bargaining Hotelling-Downs model WittmanRoemer model ideological-party model