Risk and Uncertainty as Factors in the Durability of Political Coalitions

The central purpose of this article is to shed some light on the roles that risk attitudes and uncertainty may play in determining the durability of political coalitions. Although Axelrod theorized that polarized, or “unconnected,” coalitions would be less durable than “connected” coalitions, subsequent empirical research has found little support for Axelrod's hypothesis. In this article we demonstrate theoretically that many of the anomalies associated with Axelrod's polarization hypothesis can be explained by incorporating risk attitudes and uncertainty into a logical model of a coalition maintenance process. The model we have constructed assumes that coalition members are uncertain about their ultimate payoffs and therefore are subject to persuasion and manipulation by a coalition leader. Through computer simulation we demonstrate that polarized coalitions are indeed capable of enduring for relatively long periods of time once members' risk characteristics and uncertainty are taken into consideration.