Campaign Promises as an Imperfect Signal: How does an Extreme Candidate Win against a Moderate Candidate?

Yasushi Asako ()

No 1411, Working Papers from Waseda University, Faculty of Political Science and Economics

Abstract: This study develops a political competition model in which campaign platforms are partially binding. A candidate who implements a policy that differs from his/her platform must pay a cost of betrayal, which increases with the size of the discrepancy. I also assume that voters are uncertain about candidates' policy preferences. If voters believe that a candidate is likely to be extreme, there exists a semi-separating equilibrium: an extreme candidate imitates a moderate candidate, with some probability, and approaches the median policy with the remaining probability. Although an extreme candidate will implement a more extreme policy than will a moderate candidate, regardless of imitation or approach, partial pooling ensures that voters prefer an extreme candidate who does not pretend to be moderate over an uncertain candidate who announces an extreme platform. As a result, a moderate candidate never has a higher probability of winning than does an extreme candidate.

Keywords: electoral competition; voting; campaign promise; signaling game (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D72 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2014-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-mic and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Campaign promises as an imperfect signal: How does an extreme candidate win against a moderate candidate? (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wap:wpaper:1411

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