Informational Party Primaries and Strategic Ambiguity

Adam Meirowitz
Additional contact information
Adam Meirowitz: Princeton University, ameirowi@Princeton.edu

Journal of Theoretical Politics, 2005, vol. 17, issue 1, 107-136

Abstract: While scholars have thoroughly explored the logic of two candidate electoral competition, much less has been accomplished in gaining an understanding of the role of party primaries. This paper presents an incomplete information model of primary and general elections and argues that party primaries do more than select party candidates. Party primaries serve an informational function. In an environment where candidates are uncertain about the preferences of voters, selection of desirable policy platforms is a risky, if not difficult, undertaking. Primary elections offer voters an early opportunity to signal their preferences to candidates. Before primary elections, the candidates, aware that information about voter preferences is forthcoming, have an incentive to remain ambiguous about their policy platforms. Early commitment makes them vulnerable to better informed candidates that they might face in the general election. The fully revealing equilibrium of the game yields a joint explanation of the role of party primaries and candidate ambiguity. Primaries aggregate information about voter preferences and candidate ambiguity has an option value.

Keywords: elections; information transmission; political parties; primaries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0951629805047800 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:17:y:2005:i:1:p:107-136

DOI: 10.1177/0951629805047800

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Theoretical Politics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().