IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jothpo/v20y2008i4p461-476.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Still Converging? a Downsian Party System Without Polls

Author

Listed:
  • Emily Clough

    (Science, Political Research Quarterly and Electoral Studies, eclough@unt.edu)

Abstract

This article compares convergence of political parties when voters are voting strategically and when they are voting sincerely under low-information conditions. In order to examine this problem, I create a computational model of a party system, where parties are uncertain about the distribution of the electorate. In one condition of the model, voters vote sincerely; in another, voters vote strategically. It is found that when voters vote strategically parties are less likely to converge than when voters vote sincerely.

Suggested Citation

  • Emily Clough, 2008. "Still Converging? a Downsian Party System Without Polls," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 20(4), pages 461-476, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:20:y:2008:i:4:p:461-476
    DOI: 10.1177/0951629808093776
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0951629808093776
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0951629808093776?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Morton, Rebecca B., 1993. "Incomplete Information and Ideological Explanations of Platform Divergence," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(2), pages 382-392, June.
    2. Wittman, Donald, 1983. "Candidate Motivation: A Synthesis of Alternative Theories," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(1), pages 142-157, March.
    3. Myerson, Roger B. & Weber, Robert J., 1993. "A Theory of Voting Equilibria," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(1), pages 102-114, March.
    4. Peltzman, Sam, 1984. "Constituent Interest and Congressional Voting," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(1), pages 181-210, April.
    5. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    6. Steven Matthews, 1979. "A simple direction model of electoral competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 141-156, June.
    7. Rabinowitz, George & Macdonald, Stuart Elaine, 1989. "A Directional Theory of Issue Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(1), pages 93-121, March.
    8. Ginsberg, Benjamin, 1976. "Elections and Public Policy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 70(1), pages 41-49, March.
    9. Richard Bensel & M. Sanders, 1979. "The effect of electoral rules on voting behavior: the electoral college and shift voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 34(1), pages 69-85, March.
    10. Cox, Gary W., 1994. "Strategic Voting Equilibria under the Single Nontransferable Vote," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(3), pages 608-621, September.
    11. Wittman, Donald, 1977. "Candidates with policy preferences: A dynamic model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 180-189, February.
    12. Kollman, Ken & Miller, John H. & Page, Scott E., 1992. "Adaptive Parties in Spatial Elections," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 86(4), pages 929-937, December.
    13. Jerome Black, 1980. "The probability-choice perspective in voter decision making models," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 35(5), pages 565-574, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Micael Castanheira, 2003. "Why Vote For Losers?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1207-1238, September.
    2. Justin Buchler, 2011. "The proximity paradox: the legislative agenda and the electoral success of ideological extremists," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 148(1), pages 1-19, July.
    3. Kristin Kanthak, 2002. "Top-Down Divergence," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 14(3), pages 301-323, July.
    4. Zakharov Alexei, 2005. "Candidate location and endogenous valence," EERC Working Paper Series 05-17e, EERC Research Network, Russia and CIS.
    5. John Lott & W. Reed, 1989. "Shirking and sorting in a political market with finite-lived politicians," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 61(1), pages 75-96, April.
    6. Forand, Jean Guillaume, 2014. "Two-party competition with persistent policies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 64-91.
    7. Luca Lambertini, 2007. "Platform stickiness in a spatial voting model," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 4(40), pages 1-11.
    8. Paul V. Warwick, 2004. "Proximity, Directionality, and the Riddle of Relative Party Extremeness," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 16(3), pages 263-287, July.
    9. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    10. Francisco Martínez-Mora & M. Socorro Puy, 2009. "Off-the-peak preferences over government size," Working Papers 2009-9, Universidad de Málaga, Department of Economic Theory, Málaga Economic Theory Research Center.
    11. Antonio Merlo, 2005. "Whither Political Economy? Theories, Facts and Issues," PIER Working Paper Archive 05-033, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 01 Dec 2005.
    12. Kei Kawai & Yasutora Watanabe, 2013. "Inferring Strategic Voting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 624-662, April.
    13. Martínez-Mora, Francisco & Puy, M. Socorro, 2014. "The determinants and electoral consequences of asymmetric preferences," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 85-97.
    14. Braendle, Thomas, 2013. "Do Institutions Affect Citizens' Selection into Politics?," Working papers 2013/04, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    15. Katsuya Kobayashi & Hideo Konishi, 2016. "Endogenous party structure," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 317-351, November.
    16. Eric Dunaway & Felix Munoz-Garcia, 2020. "Campaign contributions and policy convergence: asymmetric agents and donations constraints," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 184(3), pages 429-461, September.
    17. Shin‐Ichi Fukuda, 1992. "Why Does A Two‐Party System Exist?: A New Economic Explanation," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(3), pages 277-288, November.
    18. John Cadigan, 2005. "The Citizen Candidate Model: An Experimental Analysis," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 123(1), pages 197-216, April.
    19. Krasa, Stefan & Polborn, Mattias, 2010. "The binary policy model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 661-688, March.
    20. Duggan, John & Fey, Mark, 2005. "Electoral competition with policy-motivated candidates," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 490-522, May.

    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:sae:jothpo:v:20:y:2008:i:4:p:461-476. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.