Political Parties and Electoral Landscapes

Ken Kollman, John H. Miller and Scott E. Page

Working Papers from Santa Fe Institute

Abstract: We study the relationship between voters' preferences and the composition of party platforms in two-party democratic elections with adaptive parties. In the model, a political party locally adapts a platform on an electoral landscape. The electoral landscape is determined by the preferences of voters and the opposition party's platform. We find that adaptive parties tend to adopt moderate platforms regrdless of voters' preference. We explore how, by varying the distribution of voters' preferences, we can alter the landscape's ruggedness. Greater ruggedness lessens a party's ability to respond to voters' preferences. In other words, landscape ruggedness tempers the responsiveness of parties.

Date: 1993-01
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wop:safiwp:93-01-003

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