Activist Coalitions: Modeling Elections and Regime Change

Washington University, Saint Louis MO

Investigators

Abstract

Previous empirical research by the proposed PI (under NSF Grant SES 024173), together with a number of collaborators, has developed stochastic electoral models for Britain, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands and the United States. The work suggests that convergence to an electoral center (often predicted by electoral models) is very unlikely. In an attempt to explain non-convergence, a formal model based on exogenous valence was developed. The valence of a party leader or candidate is determined by the average evaluation by the electorate of the quality of the leader, based on past performance, or expected future performance. This theory showed that there were necessary and sufficient conditions for convergence. If the valence difference between the parties was sufficiently high (in a precise sense given by the parameters of the empirical model), the low valence parties would be obliged to adopt radical positions. The theory explained the position of Goldwater in the 1964 US election, as well as divergence of party positions in Israel in the elections of 1988, 1992 and 1996. However, the empirical models of elections in Britain, Italy and the Netherlands indicated that the valence differences in these elections were insufficient to explain the observed divergence. These results suggested that a superior electoral model should incorporate the influence of activists on candidate positions. Such a model would provide a more sophisticated account of party positioning in response to activist influence. The current proposal involves the development and application of a general stochastic model of elections based on the assumption that there are two kinds of valence. The first kind is the fixed or exogenous valence which (as in the earlier model) is assumed to be independent of party position. However, since activists provide crucial resources of time and money to their chosen party, the party can use these resources to enhance its image before the electorate, thus affecting its overall valence. In the model presented in the current proposal, the term activist valence is used to denote the effect of activist resources. These can indirectly influence voters, through the media etc., so that voters become more likely to support the party. The problem for each party is that activists tend to be more extreme than the typical voter. By choosing a policy position to maximize activist support, the party will lose centrist voters. The party must therefore calculate the optimal marginal condition to maximize vote share, or some other maximand such as probability of electoral success. The theoretical result used as the basis for the proposed research is a (first order) balance condition which encapsulates the logic of this trade off. Moreover, because activist support is denominated in terms of time and money, it can be assumed that the activist functions will exhibit decreasing returns, leading to existence of a Nash equilibrium where parties adopt optimal positions. These Nash equilibria will then depend on the willingness of activist groups to provide resources for their chosen candidates. Implicit in this model is the possibility of activist conflict over the policies in areas such as immigration, abortion, and support for stem cell research.