Elections and strategic positioning games

Frank Page and Myrna Wooders

Review of Economic Design, 2003, vol. 8, issue 1, 63-83

Abstract: We formalize the interplay between expected voting behavior and strategic positioning behavior of candidates as a common agency problem in which the candidates (i.e., the principals) compete for voters (i.e., agents) via the issues they choose and the positions they take. A political situation is defined as a feasible combination of candidate positions and expected political payoffs to the candidates. Taking this approach, we are led naturally to a particular formalization of the candidates' positioning game, called a political situation game. Within the context of this game, we define the notion of farsighted stability (introduced in an abstract setting by Chwe 1994) and apply Chwe's result to obtain existence of farsightedly stable outcomes. We compute the farsightedly stable sets for several examples of political situations games, with outcomes that conform to real-world observations. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin/Heidelberg 2003

Keywords: Farsighted stability; political common agency games (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
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Related works:
Working Paper: Elections and Strategic Positioning Games (2002)
Working Paper: Elections and Strategic Positioning Games (1999)
Working Paper: ELECTIONS AND STRATEGIC POSITIONING GAMES (1999)
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DOI: 10.1007/s10058-003-0093-z

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