IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/ecogov/v23y2022i1d10.1007_s10101-022-00267-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Shocks to issue salience and electoral competition

Author

Listed:
  • Enriqueta Aragonès

    (Institut d’Anàlisi Econòmica, CSIC)

  • Clara Ponsatí

    (European Parliament)

Abstract

We propose a two party electoral competition model to analyze the effects of an exogenous shock over the relative issue salience on the strategic policy choices of the parties. We find that both parties strategically shift their policy choices from their ideal points towards the ideal point of the median voter of the newly salient issue. The polarization of the distribution of the voters preferences produces a disadvantage for one of the parties, which is forced to implement a large policy shift. We argue that a large policy shift may break a party internal balance among its different factions, which in turn may produce important disruptions in the party system. We illustrate our arguments with an analysis of recent events in Catalonia and the UK.

Suggested Citation

  • Enriqueta Aragonès & Clara Ponsatí, 2022. "Shocks to issue salience and electoral competition," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 33-63, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:ecogov:v:23:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s10101-022-00267-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s10101-022-00267-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10101-022-00267-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10101-022-00267-0?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Neundorf, Anja & Adams, James, 2018. "The Micro-Foundations of Party Competition and Issue Ownership: The Reciprocal Effects of Citizens’ Issue Salience and Party Attachments," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(2), pages 385-406, April.
    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. José G. Montalvo, 2011. "Voting after the Bombings: A Natural Experiment on the Effect of Terrorist Attacks on Democratic Elections," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(4), pages 1146-1154, November.
    4. Barberá, Pablo & Casas, Andreu & Nagler, Jonathan & Egan, Patrick J. & Bonneau, Richard & Jost, John T. & Tucker, Joshua A., 2019. "Who Leads? Who Follows? Measuring Issue Attention and Agenda Setting by Legislators and the Mass Public Using Social Media Data," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 113(4), pages 883-901, November.
    5. Iyengar, Shanto & Peters, Mark D. & Kinder, Donald R., 1982. "Experimental Demonstrations of the “Not-So-Minimal” Consequences of Television News Programs," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 76(4), pages 848-858, December.
    6. Enriqueta Aragonès, 2007. "The key party in the Catalan government," Spanish Economic Review, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 249-271, December.
    7. 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.
    8. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. repec:cup:apsrev:v:113:y:2019:i:04:p:883-901_00 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Paul Slovic & Sarah Lichtenstein & Baruch Fischhoff, 1984. "Modeling the Societal Impact of Fatal Accidents," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(4), pages 464-474, April.
    11. Birkland, Thomas A., 1998. "Focusing Events, Mobilization, and Agenda Setting," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(1), pages 53-74, January.
    12. Wittman, Donald, 1977. "Candidates with policy preferences: A dynamic model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 180-189, February.
    13. Krosnick, Jon A. & Kinder, Donald R., 1990. "Altering the Foundations of Support for the President Through Priming," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 84(2), pages 497-512, June.
    14. Gabriel S. Lenz, 2009. "Learning and Opinion Change, Not Priming: Reconsidering the Priming Hypothesis," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(4), pages 821-837, October.
    15. Walker, Jack L., 1977. "Setting the Agenda in the U.S. Senate: A Theory of Problem Selection," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(4), pages 423-445, October.
    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. Enriqueta Aragonès & Clara Ponsatí, 2019. "Preference Shocks that Destroy Party Systems," Working Papers 1118, Barcelona School of Economics.
    2. 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.
    3. Juan Carlos Berganza, 1998. "Relationships Between Politicians and Voters Through Elections: A Review Essay," Working Papers wp1998_9809, CEMFI.
    4. William D. Nordhaus, 1989. "Alternative Approaches to the Political Business Cycle," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 20(2), pages 1-68.
    5. 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.
    6. Eric Dubois, 2016. "Political Business Cycles 40 Years after Nordhaus," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-01291401, HAL.
    7. Braendle, Thomas, 2013. "Do Institutions Affect Citizens' Selection into Politics?," Working papers 2013/04, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    8. Emily Clough, 2008. "Still Converging? a Downsian Party System Without Polls," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 20(4), pages 461-476, October.
    9. Zudenkova, Galina, 2013. "Provision of Differentiated Public Goods within Organizations," MPRA Paper 50489, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Serena Marianna Drufuca, 2014. "Information, Media and Elections: Incentives for Media Capture," Working Papers (2013-) 1402, University of Bergamo, Department of Management, Economics and Quantitative Methods.
    11. Kristin Kanthak, 2002. "Top-Down Divergence," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 14(3), pages 301-323, July.
    12. De Donder, Philippe & Gallego, Maria, 2017. "Electoral Competition and Party Positioning," TSE Working Papers 17-760, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    13. Samuel Merrill III & Bernard Grofman & Thomas L Brunell, 2014. "Modeling the electoral dynamics of party polarization in two-party legislatures," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 26(4), pages 548-572, October.
    14. Haifeng Huang, 2010. "Electoral Competition When Some Candidates Lie and Others Pander," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 22(3), pages 333-358, July.
    15. Zakharov Alexei, 2005. "Candidate location and endogenous valence," EERC Working Paper Series 05-17e, EERC Research Network, Russia and CIS.
    16. Lind, Jo Thori, 2020. "Rainy day politics. An instrumental variables approach to the effect of parties on political outcomes," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    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 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.
    19. Duggan, John & Fey, Mark, 2005. "Electoral competition with policy-motivated candidates," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 490-522, May.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Preference shock; Relative salience; Party consistency;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • 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:spr:ecogov:v:23:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s10101-022-00267-0. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.