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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
When To Run And When To Hide: Electoral Coordination And Exit, Indridi Indridason
When To Run And When To Hide: Electoral Coordination And Exit, Indridi Indridason
Indridi H Indridason
Elections represent a coordination problem for voters and candidates for office. Electoral coordination is also the causal mechanism behind any explanation of the relationship between electoral systems and the number of parties. I present a dynamic model of electoral coordination with candidate exit. The model extends two important results from the literature to a dynamic setting. The extension of Duverger's Law and the median-voter theorem also offers a simultaneous prediction of the number of parties and their ideological positions. Coordination failure is shown to be possible in a mixed-strategy equilibrium.
Making Candidates Count: The Logic Of Electoral Alliances In Two Round Legislative Elections, André Blais, Indridi Indridason
Making Candidates Count: The Logic Of Electoral Alliances In Two Round Legislative Elections, André Blais, Indridi Indridason
Indridi H Indridason
Electoral systems have been shown to influence strategic voting and the development of party systems but the focus has rarely been on the strategies that parties adopt to take advantage of the electoral system under which they compete. Electoral pacts form one such strategy. We present a theory about the formation of electoral pacts in majority run-off elections and pay special attention to the consequences of the presence of extremist parties. Analyzing the 2002 French legislative elections we find that the Socialists and the Greens were more likely to form an alliance (and to agree on a common candidate) in …