History-bound Reelections

Hans Gersbach

No 15/225, CER-ETH Economics working paper series from CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich

Abstract: Often political races are not really competitive, and the path to reelection is smooth for many incumbents. In two-candidate races for office we suggest the introduction of a new re-election rule, which we call the “Score-replication Rule.” This rule requires that, to be reelected, any incumbent has to obtain a percentage of votes that is at least as high as the highest vote-share he/she obtained in any previous election (reduced by some margin). Such a delimiter would restrain negative “incumbency advantages,” and render reelection competitive again. It could also reduce polarization in the United States Congress. Moreover, we suggest how history-bound reelections could be used in European-style proportional election systems.

Keywords: History-bound Reelections; Competitive Elections; Incumbency Advantages; Score-replication Rule (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D7 D8 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 10 pages
Date: 2015-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pol
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Related works:
Journal Article: History-Bound Reelections (2020)
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