Nation states vs. united empire: Effects of political competition on economic growth

Is political fragmentation, i.e., nation states, more favorable to economic growth than political unification, i.e., a united empire? This study develops an endogenous-growth model to analyze the growth effects of fragmentation versus unification. Under unification, the economy is vulnerable to excessive Leviathan taxation and possibly subject to the costs of unifying heterogeneous populations. Under fragmentation, the competing rulers are constrained in taxation but spend excessively on military defense. If capital mobility is above (below) a threshold, then fragmentation (unification) would favor growth, and this threshold is increasing in the degree of defense competition and decreasing in the costs of heterogeneity.     

Consensus,constraint, and political polarization in recent presidential elections

By reexamining the structure of political attitudes among Americans in the period 1956–72, using both the items and coding scheme as given inThe Changing American Voter (1976) by Nie and his associates and using only domestic attitude items, but including all available responses, we have found that the major type of change between the 1950s and the 1970s is not an increase in internal constraint (ideological thinking of any sort) but an increase in political attitude polarization. Further, this analysis indicates that when interitem associations are used to measure constraints present in the entire population, a major source of political attitude constraint is ignored—the constraints present within the social, political and demographic groupings within the society. The major types of attitude constraints in our society are likely to be external to the attitudes themselves. Understanding electoral outcomes will necessitate understanding the nature of electoral coalitions formed across social and political groupings.     

The impact of campaign expenditures on political competition in the French legislative elections of 1993

We use regression analysis to estimate the effect that campaign money had on the votes of challengers and incumbents in the 1993 elections to the French legislative assembly. Incumbent candidates can at best expect to win 1.01% of the popular vote for each extra franc they spend per registered voter in their district. Challengers can expect to win at least twice as much as this. Simulations show that if campaign spending ceilings were halved, incumbents would have gained an extra ten percent of the popular vote over their closest challenging rivals. The regression analysis also suggests that voters react negatively to candidates who rely heavily on their own money for their outlays and reward candidates who rely on contributions from private individuals. These results suggest that campaign spending ceilings may inhibit political competition, and that voters may resist a candidate who relies on narrow sources of funding.     

Ideological position,leaders' charisma,and voting preferences: Personal vs. partisan elections

The study compared the relationships between voting preferences and two predictors: voters' ideological position and the perceived charisma of political leaders, under two conditions: partisan elections and personal elections. It also examined whether these relationships are moderated by the ideological extremity of the parties standing for election and by voters' personal disposition to ascribe importance to leadership. The study was carried out a short time before the last general elections in Israel. Two comparable samples were used: one focused on relatively moderate parties and their leaders, and the other on more extreme parties and leaders. In both samples, voters' ideological position was strongly related to leaders' perceived charisma and to voting preferences, but leaders' perceived charisma added significantly to the prediction of voting preferences, especially under conditions of personal elections. In combination, voters' ideological position and leaders' charisma perceptions predicted voting preferences very accurately. These relationships were not affected by the two hypothesized moderators.The assistance of Amos Chividaly in data analysis is gratefully acknowledged.     

Monetary policy and presidential elections: A nonpartisan political cycle

This paper develops a Federal Reserve reaction function which relates policy intentions to forecasts of policy objectives. Pre- and postpresidential election estimates of this reaction function for the post-Accord period of 1953–1984 suggest two conclusions:

Competition in political and economic markets

Prepared as a response to Frey and Eichenberger's Anomalies in Political Economy. We thank Gordon Tullock for helpful discussions. This work was partially supported by the Taylor Experimental Laboratory at Washington University.     

Campaign competition and policy responsiveness in direct legislation elections

Many scholars, pundits, and reform advocates argue that more competitive elections are needed to produce policy outcomes that better reflect voter interests. We challenge this argument. Using a model of direct legislation elections, we prove that greater electoral competition is neither necessary nor sufficient for more responsive postelection policy outcomes. Instead, we find that more competition increases responsivenessonly if the additional competitors are both sympathetic to voter interests and sufficiently credible to affect voter behavior. If either condition fails to hold, then increasing competition will make votersworse off, if it affects them at all. We conclude that enhanced voter competence, and not more competition, is the key to greater responsiveness.     

Policy competition in the 2002 French legislative and presidential elections

Abstract.  The French two-round system of presidential elections forces candidates to choose strategies designed to maximize their votes in two different, potentially conflicting strategic contexts: a first round contest between many candidates, and a second round between (typically) a left- and a right-oriented candidate. Following a constitutional change in 2000, furthermore, presidential elections are synchronized with legislative elections, more tightly linking presidential candidates to the policy platforms of the parties they represent. This article examines the consequences of policy positioning by presidential candidates, measuring, comparing and assessing positioning in the legislative elections and in the first and second presidential election rounds. The measures come from an expert survey taken in 2002, from content analysis of party manifestos and presidential speeches, and from the 2002 French National Election Survey. The findings provide hard empirical confirmation of two commonly perceived propositions: first, that Jospin's first-round loss resulted from strategic error in moving too close to the policy centre, and second, that Chirac's won an overwhelming second-round victory because he collected all of the voters from candidates eliminated in the first round.     

Candidate competition and strategic coordination: evidence from four early Norwegian elections

This article investigates strategic coordination in four elections to the Norwegian Storting (1909–18). The elections were held under a majority-plurality dual-ballot system, with unrestricted participation in the second-ballot. The focus is on elections with Conservative, Liberal and Labour candidates as main contenders. Supported by historical and theoretical arguments, the authors assume universally sincere voting in the first-ballot. Given this assumption, second-ballot elections can be analyzed as regular plurality elections. Hypotheses about behavior are formed using the game theoretic framework of Myerson and Weber (American Political Science Review 87 (1993) 102–114). It is found that while voters follow the predictions of theory fairly closely, the extent of coordination present at the candidate level can be questioned.     

Extra votes to signal loyalty: regional political cycles and national elections in Russia

Public Choice - Under the system of presidential appointments of regional governors, which existed in Russia from 2005 to 2012, gubernatorial loyalty to the central government and particularly...