Campaign contributions as valence

I study how the possibility of voters contributing to candidates in response to the candidates’ policy proposals affects the equilibrium policy in winner-take-all political competition. More specifically, I allow each partisan voter to contribute to her preferred candidate where the amount contributed depends on the relative positions of the two candidates. Candidates then use the donations to build valence through campaigning, which in turn affects the voting decision of impressionable voters. Since candidates are concerned with raising money as well as picking a policy position preferred by the median voter, I show that campaign contributions may lead to divergent equilibria in winner-take-all elections when politicians are policy-motivated, albeit only under stylized utility functions and donor densities. Further, under symmetric voter and donor densities, if either the donor density is single-peaked or the voter utility is concave, a unique equilibrium exists in which both candidates propose the ideal policy of the median voter.     

Roadmaps to Representation: An Experimental Study of How Voter Education Tools Affect Citizen Decision Making

Efforts to educate citizens about the candidates and issues at stake in elections are widespread. These include distributing voter guides describing candidates’ policy views and interactive tools conveying similar information. Do these voter education tools help voters identify candidates who share their policy views? We address this question by conducting survey experiments that randomly assign a nonpartisan voter guide, political party endorsements, a spatial map showing voters their own and the candidates’ ideological positions, or both a spatial map and party endorsements. We find that each type of information strengthens the relationship between voters’ policy views and those of the candidates they choose. These effects are largest for uninformed voters. When spatial maps and party endorsements send conflicting signals, many voters choose candidates with more similar policy views, against their party’s recommendation. These results contribute to debates about citizen competence and demonstrate the efficacy of practical efforts to inform electorates.

     

Voter reactions to candidate background characteristics depend on candidate policy positions

Do personal background characteristics of a political candidate affect voter evaluations when voters also know the candidate's policy position? Several studies have shown that voters infer personal traits and policy positions from candidate characteristics such as gender, family background and occupation. However, in most elections, voters do not evaluate candidates absent of any policy information. We investigate whether the influence of personal background characteristics vanishes when policy information regarding a candidate is available to the voters. Using a survey experiment, we confirm that voters infer both personal traits and policy positions from the background characteristics of a candidate, and we furthermore show that explicit information on policy positions moderates the relationship between background characteristics and candidate evaluations. However, policy information does not simply crowd out the effects of candidate background characteristics. Instead, policy information can change the valence of background characteristics, turning otherwise disadvantageous characteristics into an electoral advantage.     

Are voters cursed when politicians conceal policy preferences?

In campaigns, candidates often avoid taking positions on issues, concealing the policy preferences that would guide them if elected. This paper describes a novel explanation for ambiguity in political campaigns. It develops a model of candidate competition in which policy-motivated candidates can choose whether or not to announce their policy preferences to voters. It applies Eyster and Rabin’s (Econometrica 73(5):1623–1672, 2005) concept of cursed equilibrium, which allows for varying degrees of understanding of the connection between type (policy preference) and strategy (whether to announce). If voters updated according to Bayes’ rule, they would understand that candidates who do not announce positions are strategically concealing an unpopular policy preference. In equilibrium, only the most extreme candidates, those located furthest from the median voter’s position, would choose to take no position. However, if voters do not sufficiently appreciate the informational content of a non-announcement, unraveling will not occur and both extremists and more moderate candidates will not announce positions.     

Violence, bribery, and fraud: the political economy of?elections in Sub-Saharan Africa

Post-Soviet African democratization has introduced elections into contexts that often lack restraints upon the behavior of candidates, resulting in the emergence of voter intimidation, vote-buying, and ballot fraud. We propose a model of electoral competition where, although some voters oppose violence, it is effective in intimidating swing voters. We show that in equilibrium a weak challenger will use violence, which corresponds to a terrorism strategy. Similarly, a nationally weak incumbent will use repression. However, a stronger incumbent facing local competition will prefer to use bribery or ballot fraud. We discuss the applicability of the model to several African elections.     

Projection effects and strategic ambiguity in electoral competition

Theories from psychology suggest that voters’ perceptions of political positions depend on their non-policy related attitudes towards the candidates. A voter who likes (dislikes) a candidate will perceive the candidate’s position as closer to (further from) his own than it really is. This is called projection. If voters’ perceptions are not counterfactual and voting is based on perceived policy positions then projection gives generally liked candidates an incentive to be ambiguous. In this paper we extend the standard Downsian model in order to investigate under what conditions this incentive survives in the strategic setting of electoral competition.     

A political economy model of market intervention

We argue that political competition based on income redistribution à la Lindbeck and Weibull (Public Choice 52:273–297, 1987) may cause distortive regulation in a competitive sector. For this purpose, we propose a model in which imposing a production quota allows the extraction of rents that are then used for vote-buying purposes. Our model permits us to analyze the response of regulatory policy to political factors, such as the size of a group of informed voters and the accuracy of their information about the incumbent. We also show that the extent of voter influence on policy outcomes is shaped by the state of market demand. In particular, if demand becomes weaker, market intervention increases in a magnitude that depends positively on the electoral weight of informed voters.     

A Model of Farsighted Voting

I present a new method of interpreting voter preferences in settings where policy remains in effect until replaced by new legislation. In such settings voters consider not only the utility they receive from a given policy today, but also the utility they will receive from policies likely to replace that policy in the future. The model can be used to characterize both long-term preferences and distributions over policy outcomes in situations where policy is ongoing and voters are farsighted.     

Voters’ evaluation of (contra-)prototypical political candidates. An experimental test of the interaction of candidate gender and policy positions cues in Flanders (Belgium)

Following social psychological models of impression formation, information about candidates' policy positions shapes voters' impressions of their personal qualities (Rahn et al., 1990). This paper presents an experimental test of the impact of the inclusion of information about candidates' policy positions on the prevalence of issue competence stereotypes in Flanders (Belgium), i.e. the idea that male and female candidates have different areas of issue competence. Respondents are found to primarily base their evaluation of the presented candidates on the policy positions presented by the candidate and the extent to which they agree with the presented policy positions. It can therefore be concluded that the inclusion of information about candidates' policy positions trumps the effects of candidate gender on voters’ preferences. This decreased stereotype reliance is potentially beneficial for female candidates because it also decreases the chances of a voter bias.     

Keeping the other candidate guessing: Electoral competition when preferences are private information

We analyze a, model of two candidate competition in which candidate and voter preferences are private information. If candidates simultaneously commit to policy platforms the uncertainty about candidate preferences reinforces the incentive for platform divergence. After a candidate observes the other candidate’s stance but before she learns about voter preferences she may face regret about her choice. This ex post irrationality suggests that a 1 period model may not capture the relevant incentives. In a multi-period proposal game in which candidates first make non-binding public proposals and then they make binding public proposals (similar to Ledyard, 1989) we find that candidates are uninformative during the first stage, as they have a disincentive to reveal their preferences to the opposing candidate. This finding offers an explanation for candidate ambiguity or inconsistency early in an election which does not involve efforts to deceive voters. Candidates may be trying to keep their opponent guessing. With a strong pre-election commitment technology, candidates can only be deterred from this type of behavior if they anticipate that a sizeable number of voters (more than a majority) will vote contrary to their preferences over policy.     

A model of candidate location with endogenous valence

This work gives a theoretical explanation for the increase in campaign spending and party polarization in U.S. politics. I assume that the effectiveness of persuasive advertising, and of costly valence campaigning in general, positively depends on the share of nonpartisan voters. A decline in the number of partisan voters in a constituency results in greater campaign spending by the candidates. If the voters are risk-averse, the candidates who maximize their expected office rents minus the cost of campaigning will choose divergent policy platforms strategically in order to reduce the costs of subsequent campaign spending. The degree of policy divergence positively depends on the share of nonpartisan voters for a broad class of voter disutility and candidate cost of valence functions.     

Candidate Choice Without Party Labels:

In the absence of party labels, voters must use other information to determine whom to support. The institution of nonpartisan elections, therefore, may impact voter choice by increasing the weight that voters place on candidate dimensions other than partisanship. We hypothesize that in nonpartisan elections, voters will exhibit a stronger preference for candidates with greater career and political experience, as well as candidates who can successfully signal partisan or ideological affiliation without directly using labels. To test these hypotheses, we conducted conjoint survey experiments on both nationally representative and convenience samples that vary the presence or absence of partisan information. The primary result of these experiments indicates that when voters cannot rely on party labels, they give greater weight to candidate experience. We find that this process unfolds differently for respondents of different partisan affiliations: Republicans respond to the removal of partisan information by giving greater weight to job experience while Democrats respond by giving greater weight to political experience. Our results lend microfoundational support to the notion that partisan information can crowd out other kinds of candidate information.     

The effect of relative economic performance on the outcome of gubernational elections

This study finds that one of the most important determinants of election outcomes in gubernatorial elections is the voter's familiarity with the candidates. When an incumbent governor seeks re-election, his party's share of the vote increases by about 7.3 percentage points, ceteris paribus. Likewise, when a former candidate represents the opposition party, the incumbent party's share of the vote decreases by about three percentage points, ceteris paribus. The electoral history of the state also has a significant effect on the share of the vote received by the incumbent party.The major finding of this study is that state economic conditions exert only a weak influence on the outcome of gubernatorial elections. Assuming that voters are rational, a major implication of this finding is that voters do not view a governor as being able to substantially influence a state's economy. If, during a gubernatorial campaign, voters view the candidates as having little or no control over the state economy they will evaluate candidates on the basis of non-economic positions.     

Candidate Cues and Voter Confidence in American Elections

A primary objective of election administration is ensuring voter confidence. Logically, this entails meeting two conditions: procedures should insure that elections are fair and accurate, and voters should be aware of the procedures. Yet American election procedures such as ballot access and design, post-election audits and recounts, voter registration, and polling place operations are complex and highly decentralized. Given the complexity of the information environment and the relatively limited information most voters have about politics, what (if any) connection is there between election administration and voter confidence? We consider whether candidates fill the gap between election administration and voter confidence in elections. We test several hypotheses using an experimental design with multiple measures of voter confidence. The results show that candidates have a significant effect on voter confidence.     

Voter Partisanship and the Effect of Distributive Spending on Political Participation

Do distributive benefits increase voter participation? This article argues that the government delivery of distributive aid increases the incumbent party's turnout but decreases opposition‐party turnout. The theoretical intuition here is that an incumbent who delivers distributive benefits to the opposing party's voters partially mitigates these voters’ ideological opposition to the incumbent, hence weakening their motivation to turn out and oust the incumbent. Analysis of individual‐level data on FEMA hurricane disaster aid awards in Florida, linked with voter‐turnout records from the 2002 (pre‐hurricane) and 2004 (post‐hurricane) elections, corroborates these predictions. Furthermore, the timing of the FEMA aid delivery determines its effect: aid delivered during the week just before the November 2004 election had especially large effects on voters, increasing the probability of Republican (incumbent party) turnout by 5.1% and decreasing Democratic (opposition party) turnout by 3.1%. But aid delivered immediately after the election had no effect on Election Day turnout.     

Incumbency effects in political campaigns

In this paper we examine two effects of incumbency. First, an incumbent may have an advantage in creating a favorable image in the eyes of the voters. Second, the incumbent may have to chose a position before the challenger; this second aspect of incumbency is modelled as Stackelberg leadership. In the model two candidates run for election by choosing a position in an ideological spectrum. Voters care about candidates' chosen positions as well as non-policy attributes of candidates, which we call charisma. Charismata are not known when candidates choose policy positions; they are only revealed on election day so that winning is not usually a certain prospect. Candidates care about the probability of winning but they also dislike compromising their own ideals.We find that the incumbent's equilibrium position is closer to his/her own ideal point than the equilibrium position of the game when moves are simultaneous. Also, for sufficiently large charismatic differences a natural leadership regime prevails: the candidate with the large charismatic advantage prefers being a leader to being a follower and the opponent prefers being a follower. If the difference in charismata is small both players prefer to be followers     

Who Votes for the Future? Information,Expectations, and Endogeneity in Economic Voting

Voters’ four primary evaluations of the economy—retrospective national, retrospective pocketbook, prospective national, and prospective pocketbook—vary in the cognitive steps necessary to link economic outcomes to candidates in elections. We hypothesize that the effects of the different economic evaluations on vote choice vary with a voter’s ability to acquire information and anticipate the election outcome. Using data from the 1980 through 2004 US presidential elections, we estimate a model of vote choice that includes all four economic evaluations as well as information and uncertainty moderators. The effects of retrospective evaluations on vote choice do not vary by voter information. Prospective economic evaluations weigh in the decisions of the most informed voters, who rely on prospective national evaluations when they believe the incumbent party will win and on prospective pocketbook evaluations when they are uncertain about the election outcome or believe that the challenger will win. Voters who have accurate expectations about who will win the election show the strongest relationship between their vote choice and sociotropic evaluations of the economy, both retrospective and prospective. Voters whose economic evaluations are most likely to be endogenous to vote choice show a weaker relationship between economic evaluations and their votes than the voters who appear to be more objective in their assessments of the election. Economic voting is broader and more prospective than previously accepted, and concerns about endogeneity in economic evaluations are overstated.     

A test of candidate equilibrium

Richard McKelvey predicts that candidates will converge to an equilibrium if candidates and voters maximize their utility and voters' preferences conform to stringent assumptions. Although there are discrepancies between electoral data and the requirements of the theory, an analysis of 1972 and 1976 survey data lends support to basic components of the theory. First, most voters did choose the candidate who provided the greater utility. Second, voter distribution was not asymmetrical enough to allow a candidate to win by moving away from the median toward a concentration of voters. Third, the winning strategy for a candidate was to locate at or near the median. While formal theories' predictions will not hold in their precisely stated form, the assumptions can be robust enough to offer an explanation of electoral choices.     

Policy Voting in Senate Elections: The Case of Abortion

Questions about whether voters rely on their policy preferences when casting ballots have been present since scholars first began examining the determinants of voting behavior. This paper seeks to contribute to research in this area by analyzing abortion policy voting in Senate elections. Specifically, I investigate how the effects of national party position divergence, candidate position divergence, and voter information and salience moderate the relationship between abortion policy preferences and vote choice. The results suggest that the national parties' divergence on abortion does not directly strengthen the connection between abortion policy preferences and ballot decisions. Instead, candidate contrast appears to be the key. And, well informed and motivated voters are especially responsive. Taken together, the findings illuminate the nature of abortion policy voting and also inform the burgeoning scholarship on campaign effects, the role of information, and issue publics in American politics.     

The shape of utility functions and voter attitudes towards risk

The key concern of this contribution is how voters transform distances within a political space into voter utility, i.e. whether theoretical and/or statistical models of vote choice should employ linear or quadratic loss functions to adequately capture spatial utility: First, the selection of an appropriate distance metric is a key concern in the specification of theoretical and statistical models of vote choice. Secondly, these options transcend the domains of mere technical modeling choices, but address attitudes towards risk, and directly relate to voter reactions to widespread phenomena such as party ambiguity and/or voter uncertainty.The empirical analysis rests upon the rich data provided by the collaborative project “The Comparative Study of Electoral Systems” (CSES). Comparative data analyses across heterogeneous national and electoral contexts clearly demonstrate that voters are, on average, much less risk-averse than assumed by the vast majority of empirical and theoretical contributions. Instead, we find that voters in mass elections are by and large neutral towards risk and are not systematically repelled by party ambiguity and (candidate-induced or perceptual) voter uncertainty.