A Median Activist Theorem for Two-Stage Spatial Models

Daniel M. Kselman ()
Additional contact information
Daniel M. Kselman: IE School of International Relations

A chapter in The Political Economy of Governance, 2015, pp 193-210 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract The spatial model of electoral competition has for decades been a staple of formal political theory. As part of this field, a number of authors have developed two-stage spatial models in which electoral candidates must first win intra-party primary elections, and then compete in a general inter-party election. A universal result in these two-stage models is that party selectorates, and in particular the “median party activist”, exert a centrifugal pull on party platforms. The current paper brings this basic finding into question, suggesting that party voters only exert this centrifugal force under fairly strict conditions; and in particular only if candidates attach fairly high value to the outcome. The paper’s primary result, a “Median-Activist Theorem”, suggests that if candidates place little value on winning the nomination in and of itself, primaries are necessary, but not sufficient, for generating more extreme electoral platforms.

Keywords: Nash Equilibrium; General Election; Median Activist; Ideal Point; Median Voter (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:spr:stpocp:978-3-319-15551-7_10

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783319155517

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-15551-7_10

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Studies in Political Economy from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().