Political cycles: issue ownership and the opposition advantage - INRAE - Institut national de recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement
Article Dans Une Revue Journal of Public Economic Theory Année : 2008

Political cycles: issue ownership and the opposition advantage

Alternances politiques : thèmes privilégiés et l'avantage de l'opposition

Résumé

In modern democracies, common wisdom suggests that political parties alternate in power due to voters' disappointment. The aim of this paper is to show that parties' turnover may be due to voters' "satisfaction." Our model is built on two main assumptions: Parties "own" different issues, and investments in the provision of public goods create a linkage between successive elections. We show that no party can maintain itself in power forever when the median voter is moderate enough. This result holds when the parties' main objective is to win the election and is compatible with a large range of candidates subobjectives that may change from one election to the next. We also provide some novel welfare implications. Whereas rent-seeker candidates always dominate reelection-concerned candidates in one public good models, rent-seeker candidates may be welfare improving compared with reelection-concerned candidates.
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
12926_20070420033251788_1.pdf (841.52 Ko) Télécharger le fichier
Origine Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s)

Dates et versions

hal-02659936 , version 1 (22-06-2023)

Identifiants

Citer

Raphael Soubeyran, Pascal Gautier. Political cycles: issue ownership and the opposition advantage. Journal of Public Economic Theory, 2008, 10 (4), pp.685-716. ⟨10.1111/j.1467-9779.2008.00382.x⟩. ⟨hal-02659936⟩
62 Consultations
33 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

More