IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cem/jaecon/v15y2012n2p321-351.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Political parties as a commitment technology: effects of term limits on vote share

Author

Abstract

Building on models of electoral competition with reputational mechanisms, I show that term limits decrease the vote share of candidates from parties less able to reward or punish candidates. Candidates suffer by not being able to credibly commit to policies far from their own preferences. Assuming that the major parties can provide better discipline of their members than third parties, the implication of the model is that third party candidates will be worse off, in terms of vote share garnered, in elections for offices with term limits. The hypothesis that third parties do worse under term limits is tested using state gubernatorial elections. Data from 1977-2008 show the vote share of third party candidates is approximately six percent lower in elections for a term-limited office when controlling for other election characteristics and regional and temporal trends in party popularity.

Suggested Citation

  • Jason M. DeBacker, 2012. "Political parties as a commitment technology: effects of term limits on vote share," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 15, pages 321-351, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:cem:jaecon:v:15:y:2012:n:2:p:321-351
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ucema.edu.ar/publicaciones/download/volume15/debacker.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    Keywords

    time consistency; political parties; commitment; term limits;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cem:jaecon:v:15:y:2012:n:2:p:321-351. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Valeria Dowding (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cemaaar.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.