Paper #457

Title:

Electoral competition under the threat of political unrest

Authors:

Matthew Ellman and Leonard Wantchekon

Date:

August 1999

Abstract:

We study elections in which one party (the strong party) controls a source of political unrest; e.g., this party could instigate riots if it lost the election. We show that the strong party is more likely to win the election when there is less information about its ability to cause unrest. This is because when the weak party is better informed, it can more reliably prevent political unrest by implementing a ``centrist'' policy. When there is uncertainty over the credibility of the threat, ``posturing'' by the strong party leads to platform divergence.

Keywords:

Electoral competition, political unrest, asymmetric information, platform divergence

JEL codes:

D72, D82

Area of Research:

Microeconomics

Published in:

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 115, 2, 2000, pp. 499-531

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