Parties as Utility Maximizers
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3700705 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Donald Wittman (0000-0002-1073-4345, University of California, Santa Cruz, corresponding author), Donald A Wittman |
| Year | 1973 |
| Volume | 67 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 490-498 |
| Publication date | 1973-06-01 |
| 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 | 10.2307/1958779 |
| OpenAlex | W2083349392 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 106 |
| References cited | 25 |
The article introduces two models of political party decision making. Both models assume that the parties are solely interested in policy and that winning the election is just a means to that end. In one, the parties are competitive, while in the other the parties collude. The main result, in either case, is that the parties tend to be unresponsive to the interests of the voters.The models are analyzed in an intransitive case (an election concerned only with income distribution) and a transitive one (an election where all political attitudes can be put on a left-right continuum), and under the assumptions of perfect and imperfect information.With perfect information the intransitive case results in the parties ending up with all the income; while in the single peaked case neither party will have a position to the left (right) of the left (right) party's most preferred position whatever the attitudes of the voters.Finally it is shown that it is rational for the parties to collude and present similar platforms
Economics · Imperfect · Law and economics · Microeconomics · Perfect information · Political science · Politics · Position (finance · Transitive relation · Voting · Game Theory and Applications · Game Theory and Voting Systems · Law · Merger and Competition Analysis
Una teoría sobre el comportamiento de los partidos políticos competitivos
The Impact of Electoral Laws on Political Parties
Linking Citizens and Parties
Rational Choice Institutionalism
Modeling Party Competition in General Elections
The Future of Analytical Politics
Ideology and the Theory of Political Choice
Self-Interest and Public Interest in Western Politics
Candidates with policy preferences
A Political Theory of Populism
Contribution to productivity or pork barrel? The two faces of infrastructure investment
Equilibrium in spatial voting
Partisan theory after fifteen years
The Oxford handbook of American elections and political behavior
Generalising the political economy of structural change
Campaign contributions by political parties ideologyvs. winning
Capitalism and Democracy
Capitalism, Democracy, and Welfare
Sistemas electorales y su influencia en el diseño de la política ambiental
Polyarchy
Why Small, Centrist Third Parties Motivate Policy Divergence by Major Parties
Ideological Extremists in the U.S. Congress
Intraparty and Interparty Politics
The State of Democratic Theory
Voter Learning, Unidimensional Ideology, and Polarization
Policy experimentation, political competition, and heterogeneous beliefs
Economic effects of the capture of political parties
Attitudes toward Redistributive Policy
Managing Urban Sprawl in Ontario
Evolution of New Parties
How Useful is the Cumul des Mandats for Being Re-elected? Empirical Evidence from the 1997 French Legislative Elections
Does political fragmentation lead to budgetary incrementalism? An empirical test on the French local public sector
Economic Theory of Democracy Revisited and Revised
Campaign Organizations, Social Technology and Apolitical Participation
A Chicago view of the Indian state
How clientelism works
An empirical investigation of public choices for green spaces
Building inter-ethnic bridges or promoting ethno-territorial demarcation lines? Hungarian minority parties in competition
Jennifer C. Martin-Das, The European Monetary Union in a Public Choice Perspective
Shirking, representation, and Congressional behavior
Policy-seeking candidates who value the valence attributes of the winner
Electoral equilibria with restricted strategies
An expanded approach to analyzing policy-minded candidates
Governmental behavior in representative democracy
Party Platforms with Endogenous Party Membership
The effects of alternative power-sharing arrangements
John E. Roemer, Political Competition
Partisan politics and public finance
Incumbent-challenger and open-seat elections in a spatial model of political competition
Voting competitions with interested politicians
A Preference for Selfish Preferences
Rational Politicians and Rational Bureaucrats in Washington and Whitehall
United in diversity
Inside the party’s mind
Elections, parties and institutional design
Differentiated party response
Are moderate parties rewarded in multiparty systems? A pooled analysis of Western European elections, 1984–1998
Party convergence and vote switching
Income Inequality and Voter Fractionalisation
It Is Not Only What You Say, It Is Also How You Say It
The Credibility of Party Policy Rhetoric Survey Experimental Evidence
Critical Realignments and the Public Opinion Poll
The Motives
Political Parties, Social Class, and Economic Policy Preferences
Intra-Party Democracy and Party Responsiveness
Voter Turnout and Candidate Strategies in American Elections
Party Competition and the Prisoner's Dilemma
On the Theory of Party Organization
When Candidates Value Good Character
Electoral Politics as a Redistributive Game
Everything to everyone? Not when you are internally divided
The Politics of Coalition Formation and Survival in Multiparty Presidential Democracies
Party Moderation and Politicians’ Ideological Rigidity
Campaign promises as an imperfect signal
Why primaries? The party’s tradeoff between policy and valence
The politics of fiscal federalism
Modeling the electoral dynamics of party polarization in two-party legislatures
Linear and quadratic utility loss functions in voting behavior research
What are the effects of entry of new extremist parties on the policy platforms of mainstream parties
Components of party polarization in the US House of Representatives
It's all relative
What Moves Parties
The Perceived Structure of the Canadian Party Systems
Do electoral district size and diversity affect legislative behaviour
Public opinion and policy responsiveness
Interest aggregators, not office chasers
Downs and Two-Party Convergence
Democracy Andtaxation
Elections and Macroeconomic Policy Optimization
Elections and Social Choice
Centripetal and Centrifugal Incentives in Electoral Systems
A Behavioral Theory of Competitive Political Parties
Who Responds? Voters, Parties and Issue Attention
Cultivating Effective Brokers
Exogenous Voter Preferences and Parties with State Power
Note de Recherche. L'électeur médian est-il vraiment décisif
Recent Perspectives on Modern Democracy
Modeling and measuring class conflict in Russia's regions
Os objetivos dos partidos sob regimes autoritários eleitorais ou democracias frágeis. Jogo em duas frentes
Social divisions, party positions, and electoral behaviour
Elections and the political order
The theory of political coalitions.
The General Irrelevance of the General Impossibility Theorem
An economic theory of democracy
Social Choice and Individual Values
Collective Choice and Social Welfare
The Theory of Committees and Elections
Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy
Models of the working of a two-party electoral system Part II
On the power and importance of the mean preference in a mathematical model of democratic choice
Social Choice and Individual Values
Optimum Location in Spatial Competition
Political Parties
Stability in Competition
Plurality Maximization vs Vote Maximization
Majority rule and allocation
Political Ambitions, Volunteerism, and Electoral Accountability
The Theory of Party Equilibrium
| Unique citing works | 106 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,04 |
| Citation span | 1974 - 2025 (52) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 105 |