Equilibria in multi-party competition under uncertainty

Depalma, A.; Hong, Gs.

doi:10.1007/bf01395725

Cited by 25 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Pictured in Figure 3 is each party's expected vote as a function of position, with the rival parties fixed at their equilibrium locations. Note that Table 3 shows that this equilibrium configuration is quite centrist, compared with the parties' actual perceived locations in the election -a result consistent with previous equilibrium analyses for the proximity model (Adams 1997a;de Palma et al 1989de Palma et al , 1990Lin et al 1997;Schofield et al 1997a). However, unlike the results from these earlier studies, our equilibrium configuration locates the parties at many distinct policy locations, i.e., there are no 'blocs' of several parties proposing identical sets of policies.…”

Section: Party Objectives and Equilibrium Results For Alternative Votsupporting

confidence: 85%

Party policy equilibrium for alternative spatial voting models: An application to the Norwegian storting

Adams

Merrill

1999

European J Political Res

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In recent years a lively debate has emerged concerning the empirical status of the traditional proximity spatial model versus a directional model of voter choice. The central reason for this scholarly interest concerns these models' contrasting implications for parties' policy positioning, with the directional model motivating parties to present extreme policies, but the proximity model promoting centrist positions. To this point, however, there exist no studies that compute parties' optimal strategies in historical elections, for these competing models. This article addresses this issue, by examining party policy strategies in a multiparty electorate for three different vote models: (a) the proximity model, (b) a directional model (c) a mixed model which combines proximity and directional components. Each model incorporates past voting history and the random effects of unmeasured variables. Using parameter estimates derived from analyses of survey data from the 1989 Norwegian Election Study we compute -for each of these vote models -the configuration of party policy positions that maximize each party's vote share in relation to those of the other parties. We find that for each model, such a vote-maximizing configuration exists, but -for the proximity model -represents an unrealistic, tightly clustered array. A mixed proximity-directional model, however, provides by far the most convincing account of parties' actual policy strategies with regard to dispersion and vote share.

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Section: Party Objectives and Equilibrium Results For Alternative Votsupporting

confidence: 85%

Party policy equilibrium for alternative spatial voting models: An application to the Norwegian storting

Adams

Merrill

1999

European J Political Res

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“…What are new are our quantitative conclusions about the strategic implications of voter partisanship. As noted earlier, our conclusion on the centrifugal effects associated with increases in the number of parties has been anticipated by Cox (1990; see also Eaton and Lipsey, 1975), and our conclusion on the centrifugal effects associated with increases in the salience of policies has been anticipated by Lin et al (1999; see also Adams, 1999b;de Palma et al, 1990). 27 Finally, we ®nd that parties/candidates maximize votes by presenting policies similar to but less extreme than their partisans' beliefs.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 79%

Centrifugal Incentives in Multi-Candidate Elections

Merrill

Adams

2002

Journal of Theoretical Politics

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This paper analyzes factors that affect candidates' position-taking incentives in multi-candidate and multi-party elections. Following Cox (1990), we de®ne centrifugal incentives as those that motivate vote-seeking candidates to take more extreme positions relative to the center of the voter distribution. For a multivariate vote model that includes a Left±Right policy component, a party identi®cation component and an unmeasured term that renders the vote choice probabilistic, we present theoretical and computer simulation results that quantify candidates' incentives to shift their policies away from the center in the direction of their partisan constituencies' mean policy preferences. Centrifugal incentives are found to increase with (1) the salience of policies and party identi®cation, (2) the size of the candidate ®eld, (3) the size of a candidate's partisan constituency and (4) more extreme constituency policy preferences. Thus, ceteris paribus, candidates who represent large constituencies are motivated to present more extreme policies than are candidates who represent small ones.KEY WORDS . conditional logit model . multi-candidate election . Nash equilibrium . party identi®cation . spatial model Over the past ®ve years numerous studies have appeared that analyze candidates' and parties' policy strategies in historical elections. These studies employ the approach pioneered by Erikson and Romero (1990) in their analysis of the 1988 American presidential election: namely, they estimate the parameters of a voting model from election survey data, and then compute the effects of alternative candidate/party policies upon their expected votes. Such studies thus combine the perspectives of behavioral research, which emphasizes the empirical study of voting behavior, and spatial modeling, which focuses on the policy strategies of vote-seeking candidates. The objective is to understand the policies that candidates and parties presented in historical elections, and (in some cases) to analyze the possibility of a

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“…However, prior studies of models of multiparty elections report conflicting conclusions. Theoretical models that assume deterministic policy voting suggest that noncentrist positioning may be optimal 1 (Cox 1990; see also Adams 2001), while models with probabilistic voting suggest that parties increase their expected votes by shifting in the direction of the mean voter position (Lin et al 1999; De Palma et al 1990). However, recent work by Norman Schofield (2004; see also Schofield & Sened forthcoming) and by Adams and Merrill (1999, 2000; see also Adams 2001; Merrill & Adams 2002) has challenged this conclusion, suggesting that when measured nonpolicy‐related voting influences are introduced into the probabilistic voting model, then parties may enhance their vote by shifting away from the centre of the voter distribution 2…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are moderate parties rewarded in multiparty systems? A pooled analysis of Western European elections, 1984–1998

Ezrow

2005

European J Political Res

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Abstract. We present cross-national analyses -both cross-sectional and longitudinal -estimating the vote shares for approximately 80 parties across Western Europe from 1984 to 1998. The results indicate that parties' vote shares increase with their proximity to the centre of the voter distribution, although the effects are relatively small. These findings corroborate the theoretical results reported by Lin et al. in their article 'Equilibrium in Multicandidate Probabilistic Spatial Voting' (Public Choice, Vol. 98,, and provide support for conclusions reported by other authors who rely on simulations of individual-level data from national election surveys.

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Equilibria in multi-party competition under uncertainty

Cited by 25 publications

References 11 publications

Party policy equilibrium for alternative spatial voting models: An application to the Norwegian storting

Party policy equilibrium for alternative spatial voting models: An application to the Norwegian storting

Centrifugal Incentives in Multi-Candidate Elections

Are moderate parties rewarded in multiparty systems? A pooled analysis of Western European elections, 1984–1998

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