IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2108.05943.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Partisan affect and political outsiders

Author

Listed:
  • Fernanda Herrera

Abstract

We examine the effects of introducing a political outsider to the nomination process leading to an election. To this end, we develop a sequential game where politicians -- insiders and outsiders -- make a platform offer to a party, and parties in turn decide which offer to accept; this process conforms the voting ballot. Embedded in the evaluation of a party-candidate match is partisan affect, a variable comprising the attitudes of voters towards the party. Partisan affect may bias the electorate's appraisal of a match in a positive or negative way. We characterize the conditions that lead to the nomination of an outsider and determine whether her introduction as a potential candidate has any effect on the winning policy and on the welfare of voters. We find that the victory of an outsider generally leads to policy polarization, and that partisan affect has a more significant effect on welfare than ideology extremism.

Suggested Citation

  • Fernanda Herrera, 2021. "Partisan affect and political outsiders," Papers 2108.05943, arXiv.org.
  • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2108.05943
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2108.05943
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Born, Richard, 1979. "Generational Replacement and the Growth of Incumbent Reelection Margins in the U.S. House," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 73(3), pages 811-817, September.
    2. Mattozzi, Andrea & Merlo, Antonio, 2008. "Political careers or career politicians?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 597-608, April.
    3. Fowler, Anthony & Hall, Andrew B., 2014. "Disentangling the Personal and Partisan Incumbency Advantages: Evidence from Close Elections and Term Limits," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 9(4), pages 501-531, December.
    4. Erikson, Robert S., 1972. "Malapportionment, Gerrymandering, and Party Fortunes in Congressional Elections," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 66(4), pages 1234-1245, December.
    5. Martin J. Osborne & Al Slivinski, 1996. "A Model of Political Competition with Citizen-Candidates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(1), pages 65-96.
    6. Ernesto Dal Bó & Frederico Finan & Olle Folke & Torsten Persson & Johanna Rickne, 2017. "Who Becomes A Politician?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(4), pages 1877-1914.
    7. Wolfers, Justin, 2002. "Are Voters Rational? Evidence from Gubernatorial Elections," Research Papers 1730, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    8. 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.
    9. Danny Hayes, 2005. "Candidate Qualities through a Partisan Lens: A Theory of Trait Ownership," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(4), pages 908-923, October.
    10. King, Anthony, 2002. "The Outsider as Political Leader: The Case of Margaret Thatcher," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 32(3), pages 435-454, July.
    11. Richard Van Weelden, 2013. "Candidates, Credibility, and Re-election Incentives," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(4), pages 1622-1651.
    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. Thomas Braendle & Alois Stutzer, 2017. "Voters and Representatives: How Should Representatives Be Selected?," CREMA Working Paper Series 2017-05, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    2. Mattozzi, Andrea & Snowberg, Erik, 2018. "The right type of legislator: A theory of taxation and representation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 54-65.
    3. César Martinelli & John Duggan, 2014. "The Political Economy of Dynamic Elections: A Survey and Some New Results," Working Papers 1403, Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM.
    4. Berg, Heléne, 2018. "Is It Worth It? On the Returns to Holding Political Office," Research Papers in Economics 2018:5, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    5. Heléne Berg, 2018. "Is It Worth It? On the Returns to Holding Political Office," CESifo Working Paper Series 7406, CESifo.
    6. Heléne Berg, 2018. "Politicians' Payments in a Proportional Party System," CESifo Working Paper Series 7278, CESifo.
    7. Berg, Helene, 2018. "Politicians’ Payments in a Proportional Party System," Research Papers in Economics 2018:3, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    8. Jan Auerbach, 2018. "Office-Holding Premia and Representative Democracy," Discussion Papers 1802, University of Exeter, Department of Economics.
    9. Sabet, Navid, 2020. "Legal Status and Political Representation: The 1986 IRCA and Hispanic Public Officials," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224655, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    10. Cavalcanti, Francisco & Daniele, Gianmarco & Galletta, Sergio, 2018. "Popularity shocks and political selection," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 201-216.
    11. Heléne Lundqvist, 2013. "Is it worth it? On the returns to holding political office," Working Papers 2013/14, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    12. Gavoille, Nicolas & Verschelde, Marijn, 2017. "Electoral competition and political selection: An analysis of the activity of French deputies, 1958–2012," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 180-195.
    13. Framcisco Cavalcanti & Gianmarco Daniele & Sergio Galletta, 2016. "Popularity shocks and political selection : the effects of anti-corruption audits on candidates' quality," IdEP Economic Papers 1607, USI Università della Svizzera italiana.
    14. Estache, Antonio & Foucart, Renaud, 2018. "The scope and limits of accounting and judicial courts intervention in inefficient public procurement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 95-106.
    15. Braendle, Thomas, 2013. "Do Institutions Affect Citizens' Selection into Politics?," Working papers 2013/04, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    16. Heléne Lundqvist, 2013. "Is it worth it? On the returns to holding political office," Working Papers 2013/14, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    17. Eguia, Jon X. & Giovannoni, Francesco, 2019. "Tactical Extremism," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 113(1), pages 282-286, February.
    18. Chatterjee, Somdeep & Mookerjee, Mehreen & Ojha, Manini & Roy, Sanket, 2023. "Does increased credibility of elections lead to higher political competition? Evidence from India," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    19. Fabio Padovano, 2013. "Are we witnessing a paradigm shift in the analysis of political competition?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 156(3), pages 631-651, September.
    20. Forand, Jean Guillaume, 2014. "Two-party competition with persistent policies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 64-91.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:2108.05943. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.