The Case for Responsible Parties
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3300508 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Dan Bernhardt (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Jim Duggan (0000-0001-8554-2594, University of Rochester), John Duggan, Francesco Squintani (0000-0001-5632-5267, University of Essex) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 103 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 570-587 |
| Publication date | 2009-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Political Science Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0003055409990232 |
| OpenAlex | W2135114312 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 20 |
| References cited | 41 |
Electoral platform convergence is perceived unfavorably by both the popular press and many academic scholars. Arguably, to paraphrase, "it does not provide enough choice" between candidates. This article provides a formal account of the perceived negative effects of platform convergence. We show that when parties do not know voters' preferences precisely, all voters ex ante prefer some platform divergence to convergence at the ex ante median. After characterizing the unique symmetric equilibrium of competition between responsible (policy-motivated) parties, we conclude that all voters ex ante prefer responsible parties to opportunistic (purely office-motivated) ones when parties are sufficiently ideologically polarized that platforms diverge, but not so polarized that they diverge excessively. However, greater polarization increases the scope for office benefits as an instrument for institutional design. We calculate the socially optimal level of platform divergence and show that office benefits can be used to achieve this first-best outcome, if parties are sufficiently ideologically polarized
Competition (biology · Convergence (economics · Divergence (linguistics · Economics · Ex-ante · Ideology · Law and economics · Microeconomics · Outcome (game theory · Paraphrase · Polarization (electrochemistry · Political science · Politics · Scope (computer science · Computer Science · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Local Government Finance and Decentralization · Social Policy and Reform Studies
A theory on party discipline and vote switching by legislators
How does political uncertainty affect the optimal degree of policy divergence
Does Polarisation of Opinions Lead to Polarisation of Platforms? The Case of Correlation Neglect
Dynamic Elections and Ideological Polarization
Implementing direct democracy via representation
Do direct-democratic procedures lead to higher acceptance than political representation
Silent promotion of agendas
Negative Voters? Electoral Competition with Loss-Aversion
Electoral Accountability and Responsive Democracy
Adopting restriction
With Friends like These, Who Needs Enemies
Political Conflict over Time
Electoral Ambiguity and Political Representation
Political space representations with approval data
Leaders, voters and activists in the elections in Great Britain 2005 and 2010
Tactical Extremism
Partisan Leaning
Political Competition in Legislative Elections
Searching for Good Policies
Competition between Specialized Candidates
Ideology and discontent
The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion
The Responsible Electorate
A Unified Theory of Voting
Mapping Policy Preferences ii
The Rational Public
A Unified Theory of Party Competition
Mapping Policy Preferences
An Economic Model of Representative Democracy
A Model of Political Competition with Citizen-Candidates
Spatial Equilibrium with Entry
A Political Economy Model of Congressional Careers
Mixed Equilibrium in a Downsian Model with a Favored Candidate
An economic theory of democracy
Problems and Techniques
The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics
The Theory of Committees and Elections
Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System
Stability in Competition
Context Effects on Survey Responses to Questions About Abortion
Mass Political Attitudes and the Survey Response
A Simple Theory of the Survey Response
Experiments in Wording Questions
Information Flow and the Stability of Partisan Attitudes
Uninformed Votes
Robustness of the Multidimensional Voting Model
A Model of Candidate Location When One Candidate Has a Valence Advantage
Considered Opinions
The Strength of Issues
Political Ignorance and Collective Policy Preferences
Spatial Voting in the 2004 Presidential Election
Candidate Motivation
Information Effects in Collective Preferences
| Unique citing works | 20 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,25 |
| Citation span | 2010 - 2025 (16) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 20 |