Electoral competition under the threat of political unrest

Matthew Ellman () and Leonard Wantchekon

Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Abstract: We study elections in which one party (the strong party) controls a source of political unrest; e.g., this party could instigate riots if it lost the election. We show that the strong party is more likely to win the election when there is less information about its ability to cause unrest. This is because when the weak party is better informed, it can more reliably prevent political unrest by implementing a ``centrist'' policy. When there is uncertainty over the credibility of the threat, ``posturing'' by the strong party leads to platform divergence.

Keywords: Electoral competition; political unrest; asymmetric information; platform divergence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mic
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Electoral Competition Under the Threat of Political Unrest (2000)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:upf:upfgen:457

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