Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Political Competition In Legislative Elections, Stefan Krasa, Mattias K. Polborn

Mattias K Polborn

The Administrative Foundation Of The Rule Of Law, Tiberiu Dragu, Mattias K. Polborn

Mattias K Polborn

This article builds upon the observation that political rulers have to rely upon administrators to implement their policy decisions to uncover two mechanisms by which legal limits, understood in terms of fundamental human rights, can be self-enforcing in practice. We show how the effectiveness of such legal limits depends on administrators' expectation that rights violations might be costly in the future, when the current ruler's grip on power ends. We also show how the effectiveness of legal limits depends on administrators' expectation about each others' actions when asked to execute an illegal policy, which allows for the possibility that human …

The Rule Of Law In The Fight Against Terrorism, Tiberiu Dragu, Mattias K. Polborn

Mattias K Polborn

What is the role of legal limits on executive power, if any, when citizens demand more security from terrorism and allowing executive officials legal flexibility of action appears necessary to achieve it? We develop a game-theoretic model to show that when the executive faces increased electoral incentives to provide security and has legal flexibility to choose any policy it finds optimal, security from terrorism can actually decrease. In contrast, when the executive faces increased electoral incentives to provide security and there is an explicit legal limit on executive counterterrorism activities, security from terrorism increases. We also show that the executive …

Candidate Competition And Voter Learning In Sequential Primary Elections: Theory And Evidence, Mattias K. Polborn, George Deltas

Mattias K Polborn

We develop a model of sequential presidential primaries in which several horizontally and vertically differentiated candidates compete against each other. Voters are incompletely informed about candidate valence and learn over time from election results in previous districts. We analyze the effects of learning about candidate quality, and the effects of candidate withdrawal on the vote shares. An empirical analysis of the 2000-2008 US presidential primaries shows that the evolution of vote shares over the sequence of contests is consistent with the predictions of the theoretical model. The withdrawal of a candidate has a bigger effect on the vote shares of …

Political Polarization And The Electoral Effects Of Media Bias, Mattias K. Polborn, Stefan Krasa, Dan Bernhardt

Mattias K Polborn

Many political commentators diagnose an increasing polarization of the U.S. electorate into two opposing camps. However, in standard spatial voting models, changes in the political preference distribution are irrelevant as long as the position of the median voter does not change. We show that media bias provides a mechanism through which political polarization can affect electoral outcomes. In our model, media firms' profits depend on their audience rating. Maximizing profits may involve catering to a partisan audience by slanting the news. While voters are rational, understand the nature of the news suppression bias and update appropriately, important information is lost …