Party Politics: A Contest Perspective

Dominik Bruckner and Marco Sahm

No 11474, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Intra-party contests, such as the US primaries, are often used to select a candidate for a subsequent cross-party election. A more accurate selection may improve the quality of the candidate but detract more resources from the subsequent campaign. We model this trade-off as a problem of contest design and show that extreme accuracy levels are optimal: maximum accuracy if the potential candidates are sufficiently heterogeneous, and a highly random selection otherwise. In an extension of our model, the heterogeneity between potential candidates reflects the degree of political polarization within a party. Our results explain varying primary designs within and between countries and shed light upon the paradox of limited competition within democratic parties.

Keywords: contest design; accuracy; elections; intra-party competition; political polarization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mic and nep-pol
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