Why Vote for Losers?
IGIER WP No. 125
40 Pages Posted: 28 Jun 1998
There are 2 versions of this paper
Why Vote for Losers?
Date Written: March 1998
Abstract
Voting Theory generally concludes that -in first-past-the-post elections- 1) All votes should go to effective candidates (Duverger's Law); 2) Parties' platforms should converge (Median Voter Theorem). Observations, though, suggest that such predictions are not met in practice. We show that divergence and dispersion of votes is a natural election outcome when there is uncertainty and repetition of elections. "Voting for Losers" increases the informational content of elections, and forces main parties to relocate towards extremists. As a result, parties maximize their probability of being elected, not by converging to the median but by diverging to a certain extent. Ideological behavior (divergence) results then from optimizing considerations alone.
JEL Classification: D72, D81
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation