A Commitment Theory of Populism

Massimo Morelli, Nicolò, Antonio and Paolo Roberti
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Antonio Nicolo'

No 16051, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: When voters' trust in politicians collapses, they demand simple policies that they can easily monitor. Disenchanted citizens therefore prefer committed delegates to politicians who propose themselves as competent policy makers but without a specific policy commitment (trustees). In a two-party competition, the unique asymmetric equilibrium is such that voters with lower interest for the common good select a committed delegate, while those with higher interest for the common good appoint a trustee. In this equilibrium, we show that the committed delegate also chooses all the strategies typically associated with populism in the literature. Hence, this paper puts forward a commitment theory of populism.

Keywords: Populism; Competence; Commitment; Information acquisition; Interest groups; Morality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-05
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP16051 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: A Commitment Theory of Populism (2021)
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:cpr:ceprdp:16051

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP16051

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CEPR ().