Electoral Competition with Ideologically Biased Voters

Abstract

This paper studies a model of redistributive policies with deterministic voting, where two parties compete for an electorate consisting of groups which have different ideological preferences. In equilibrium, party electoral promises decrease with voter ideological biases, and a "swing voter" outcome emerges. Groups with extreme ideological preferences moreover are excluded from redistribution, and within moderate groups there is always a share of voters which, after the elections, receives a nil transfer. A problem of tyranny of the majority thus arises which depends on ideology distribution. In this context, a decrease in the level of polarization causes a reduction in the degree of tyranny of the majority and in party electoral promises.

Keywords: redistributive policies, ideology, tyranny of the majority.

JEL Classification: D72, D63, H2.