Polarization, Valence, and Policy Competition

Peter Buisseret and Richard Van Weelden

American Economic Review: Insights, 2022, vol. 4, issue 3, 341-52

Abstract: We study an election between two office-seeking candidates who are polarized along a partisan issue dimension when one candidate has a valence advantage. The candidates compete by choosing policy on a second issue dimension about which voters' preferences are uncertain. Existing work predicts that the low-valence candidate "gambles for resurrection" by adopting non-centrist policies in order to differentiate from a stronger opponent. We show that this prediction is reversed in a highly polarized environment: the strong candidate chooses policies less aligned with the electorate but nonetheless wins the election with higher probability.

JEL-codes: D11 D72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1257/aeri.20210169

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