Are Moderates Better Representatives than Extremists? A Theory of Indirect Representation

Abstract

Few, if any, elected representatives are capable of unilaterally implementing their platforms. Rather, they choose between options generated by other actors and/or external events. We present a theory of voters’ preferences over representatives who will cast votes on their behalf, and show that in this setting voters’ preferences over candidates’ platforms will not look like voters’ preferences over policies. We demonstrate that these induced preferences for representation tend to favor more extreme representatives, and we present two models of electoral competition in which induced preferences over representatives lead to elite polarization.

Giving to the Extreme? Experimental Evidence on Donor Response to Candidate and District Characteristics

“…On the one hand, extreme donors may be willing to support candidates more moderate than themselves if they are aware that their views are out of line with those of voters, and more moderate candidates may be required for the party to win elections (Hall 2015). On the other hand, extreme donors may prefer supporting candidates who are even more extreme than themselves in hopes of moving their party's platform and caucus composition closer to their own more extreme positions (Patty and Penn 2019).…”

“…While we cannot directly test why donors vastly prefer contributing to candidates who are more extreme than themselves over more moderate candidates, the finding is consistent with strategic, forward-looking behaviour. Akin to the results regarding voter preferences from Patty and Penn's (2019) formal model, donors may likewise have an ‘induced taste for extremism’ (744) due to successfully elected candidates' ability to play only a small part in influencing final policies. Because most representatives can do little more than vote on agenda items, donors may give to candidates who are extreme, running in key districts, or facing extreme opponents in order to help ‘move the median’ in their preferred (extreme) direction and prevent the out-party from doing the same (Cameron and Kastellec 2016; Kedar 2005; Krehbiel 2007).…”

“…Conversely, the greater electoral vulnerability of extremists, all else equal, may lead donors to believe that they are in greater need of financial support than moderates. Donors who give with an eye toward the subsequent lawmaking environment may also prefer to support more extreme candidates who are less likely to compromise with the opposition party (Groseclose and McCarty 2001; Lee 2016) and most likely to move the legislative party median closer to donors' extreme preferences (Barber 2016c; Cameron and Kastellec 2016; Krehbiel 2007; Patty and Penn 2019).…”

“…While broadly informative, the difficulty of interpreting self-reported motivations and assessing trade-offs limits how much we can learn from direct survey reports of motivations. Donors consistently rank ideological agreement as important to their decisions, yet it is unclear whether this means they solely contribute to like-minded candidates (Bonica 2014), are less likely to support candidates as they grow ideologically distant (Barber, Canes-Wrone, and Thrower 2017), prefer more extreme candidates to more moderate candidates (Patty and Penn 2019), or vice versa (Hall 2015). Likewise, existing survey analysis cannot assess the relative importance of multiple factors such as ideological agreement and influencing election outcomes, which donors report as important to their decisions.…”

A Theory of Intensity, Electoral Competition, and Costly Political Action

“…Recent work has applied ideas from mechanism design to the challenges of differential benefits from public goods. Patty and Penn (2019) show that when voters must choose between candidates that each embody a platform of policy positions, the candidates elected might not correspond closely to the distribution of preferences in the population. Casella (2005) proposes a voting institution of storable votes, where members of a committee can abstain from voting on proposals they care less about to cast more votes on issues they care more about, allowing better reflection of intensity across issues.…”