IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jothpo/v31y2019i3p453-473.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What are the effects of entry of new extremist parties on the policy platforms of mainstream parties?

Author

Listed:
  • Samuel Merrill

    (Professor Emeritus, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Wilkes University, USA)

  • Bernard Grofman

    (Department of Political Science and Center for the Study of Democracy, University of California-Irvine, USA)

Abstract

We examine the consequences to policy-seeking, center-left and center-right parties under proportional representation following entry by extremist parties either at one or both ends of a unidimensional political spectrum. Assuming a symmetric, unimodal voter distribution, we show that the entry of a single extremist party on either the left or right drives both mainstream parties in the direction opposite to the extremist party. We argue that this three-party scenario is the most empirically relevant case in contemporary European politics. We also extend results of Casamatta and De Donder that project moderation of mainstream parties at equilibrium for PR elections with two extremist parties – one on each end – to a symmetric, unimodal voter distribution. In a setting not considered by these authors, we show that this moderating effect on the mainstream parties for a symmetric voter distribution is reversed if the voter distribution is sufficiently bimodal.

Suggested Citation

  • Samuel Merrill & Bernard Grofman, 2019. "What are the effects of entry of new extremist parties on the policy platforms of mainstream parties?," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 31(3), pages 453-473, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:31:y:2019:i:3:p:453-473
    DOI: 10.1177/0951629819854138
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0951629819854138
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0951629819854138?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. Georges Casamatta & Philippe Donder, 2005. "On the influence of extreme parties in electoral competition with policy-motivated candidates," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 25(1), pages 1-29, October.
    2. Meguid, Bonnie M., 2005. "Competition Between Unequals: The Role of Mainstream Party Strategy in Niche Party Success," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 99(3), pages 347-359, August.
    3. Brams, Steven J. & Merrill, Samuel III, 1991. "Final-offer arbitration with a bonus," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 79-92, April.
    4. Wittman, Donald A., 1973. "Parties as Utility Maximizers," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 67(2), pages 490-498, June.
    5. Thomas R. Palfrey, 1984. "Spatial Equilibrium with Entry," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 51(1), pages 139-156.
    6. Samuel Merrill & James Adams, 2007. "The effects of alternative power-sharing arrangements: Do “moderating” institutions moderate party strategies and government policy outputs?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 413-434, June.
    7. Tim Bale & Christoffer Green‐Pedersen & André Krouwel & Kurt Richard Luther & Nick Sitter, 2010. "If You Can't Beat Them, Join Them? Explaining Social Democratic Responses to the Challenge from the Populist Radical Right in Western Europe," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 58(3), pages 410-426, June.
    8. Diermeier, Daniel & Merlo, Antonio, 2004. "An empirical investigation of coalitional bargaining procedures," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3-4), pages 783-797, March.
    9. Barnett,William A. & Schofield,Norman & Hinich,Melvin (ed.), 1993. "Political Economy: Institutions, Competition and Representation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521428316, September.
    10. James Adams & Michael Clark & Lawrence Ezrow & Garrett Glasgow, 2006. "Are Niche Parties Fundamentally Different from Mainstream Parties? The Causes and the Electoral Consequences of Western European Parties' Policy Shifts, 1976–1998," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(3), pages 513-529, July.
    11. Tim Bale & Christoffer Green-Pedersen & André Krouwel & Kurt Richard Luther & Nick Sitter, 2010. "If You Can't Beat Them, Join Them? Explaining Social Democratic Responses to the Challenge from the Populist Radical Right in Western Europe," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 58, pages 410-426, June.
    12. Adams, James & Merrill, Samuel, 2006. "Why Small, Centrist Third Parties Motivate Policy Divergence by Major Parties," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 100(3), pages 403-417, August.
    13. Browne, Eric C. & Franklin, Mark N., 1973. "Aspects of Coalition Payoffs in European Parliamentary Democracies," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 67(2), pages 453-469, June.
    14. Wittman, Donald, 1977. "Candidates with policy preferences: A dynamic model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 180-189, February.
    15. Barnett,William A. & Schofield,Norman & Hinich,Melvin (ed.), 1993. "Political Economy: Institutions, Competition and Representation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521417815, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Torun Dewan & John W Patty, 2019. "Editors’ Introduction to JTP issue 31.3," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 31(3), pages 283-285, July.

    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. James F. Adams, 2015. "Competing for votes," Chapters, in: Jac C. Heckelman & Nicholas R. Miller (ed.), Handbook of Social Choice and Voting, chapter 12, pages 201-217, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. James Adams & Samuel Merrill, 2013. "Policy-seeking candidates who value the valence attributes of the winner," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 139-161, April.
    3. Paul Redmond, 2017. "Incumbent-challenger and open-seat elections in a spatial model of political competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 170(1), pages 79-97, January.
    4. Samuel Merrill & James Adams, 2007. "The effects of alternative power-sharing arrangements: Do “moderating” institutions moderate party strategies and government policy outputs?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 413-434, June.
    5. 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.
    6. Stephen Ansolabehere & William Leblanc & James Snyder, 2012. "When parties are not teams: party positions in single-member district and proportional representation systems," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 49(3), pages 521-547, April.
    7. 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.
    8. Groseclose, Timothy J. & McCarty, Nolan, 1999. "The Politics of Blame: Bargaining before an Audience," Research Papers 1617, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    9. Mihir Bhattacharya, 2018. "A model of electoral competition between national and regional parties," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 30(3), pages 335-357, July.
    10. Catherine E. de Vries, 2007. "Sleeping Giant: Fact or Fairytale?," European Union Politics, , vol. 8(3), pages 363-385, September.
    11. Maurits Meijers & Christian Rauh, 2016. "Has Eurosceptic Mobilization Become More Contagious? Comparing the 2009 and 2014 EP Election Campaigns in The Netherlands and France," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 4(1), pages 83-103.
    12. Adam Meirowitz, 2005. "Keeping the other candidate guessing: Electoral competition when preferences are private information," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 122(3), pages 299-318, March.
    13. Sarah Meyer & Sieglinde Rosenberger, 2015. "Just a Shadow? The Role of Radical Right Parties in the Politicization of Immigration, 1995–2009," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 3(2), pages 1-17.
    14. Livio Di Lonardo, 2017. "Valence uncertainty and the nature of the candidate pool in elections," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 29(2), pages 327-350, April.
    15. Silke Adam & Eva-Maria Antl-Wittenberg & Beatrice Eugster & Melanie Leidecker-Sandmann & Michaela Maier & Franzisca Schmidt, 2017. "Strategies of pro-European parties in the face of a Eurosceptic challenge," European Union Politics, , vol. 18(2), pages 260-282, June.
    16. Abou-Chadi, Tarik & Krause, Werner, 2020. "The Causal Effect of Radical Right Success on Mainstream Parties’ Policy Positions: A Regression Discontinuity Approach," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 50(3), pages 829-847.
    17. James Floyd Downes & Matthew Loveless & Andrew Lam, 2021. "The Looming Refugee Crisis in the EU: Right‐Wing Party Competition and Strategic Positioning," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(5), pages 1103-1123, September.
    18. Robi Ragan, 2013. "Institutional sources of policy bias: A computational investigation," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 25(4), pages 467-491, October.
    19. Kirill Zhirkov, 2014. "New Political Issues, Niche Parties, And Spatial Voting In Multiparty Systems: Immigration As A Dimension Of Electoral Competition In Scandinavia," HSE Working papers WP BRP 12/PS/2014, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    20. William Howell & Stefan Krasa & Mattias Polborn, 2020. "Political Conflict over Time," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(3), pages 554-568, July.

    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:31:y:2019:i:3:p:453-473. 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.