Title: Districts, party discipline and polarization
Abstract: We analyze single-member district, first-past-the-post elections between national parties and local candidates. Parties announce a policy platform and maintain discipline on their candidates. Candidate selection can be centralized or decentralized. We show that the number of seats won by a party is maximized in two polar cases: when intra-party discipline is strict and candidate selection centralized, or when intra-party discipline is lax and candidate selection decentralized. If there are two national parties, they adopt polarized (respectively: moderate) positions if the population has heterogeneous (resp. homogeneous) preferences. The effect of intra-party discipline is ambiguous: if the population is heterogeneous, polarization is maximized when discipline is very weak. If the population is homogeneous, weak discipline may induce moderation. Finally, if parties also choose their discipline strategically, then the equilibrium is one with strict discipline either when the population is homogeneous or when national institutions induce strong legislative cohesion. These results also shed some light on why Duverger’s law seems to apply in the US but not in other democracies such as the UK or India. ∗We are grateful to Enriqueta Aragones, Catherine Dehon, Simon Hix, Antonio Merlo, Abdul Noury, Gerard Roland, and Otto Swank for insightful discussions. The comments from the audiences in Barcelona (Autonoma), Brussels (ECARES), New Orleans (Public Choice Society), Namur (FUNDP-PAI), Rotterdam (ERASMUS Universiteit), and University of Pennsylvania were also particularly helpful. †ECARES, ULB CP 114; 50, Av. Roosevelt. 1050 Brussels; Belgium. Email: [email protected] ‡Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Department of Economics H8-11, Postbus 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Tel: +31-10-408.13.91. Email: [email protected]
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 3
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