The Investment Theory of Politics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Temin
Keyword(s):  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Median Voter ◽  
Political Advertising ◽  
Voting Rules ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Citizens United ◽  
Investment Theory ◽  
Lack Of Information ◽  
American Elections ◽  
Money In Politics

The Median Voter Theorem does not explain American elections and policies because of low voter turn-out and high costs of information. The Constitution let states choose voting rules, allowing racial discrimination to be used to limit voting. Lack of information forces voters to choose blindly between complex alternatives. The Investment Theory of Politics is more accurate because it shifts our focus from voters to rich businesses and people who exert influence on voters by political advertising. The amount of money spent on elections determines outcomes more than candidates’ policy positions. The Investment Theory of Politics has become more important since Citizens United and the increase of dark money in politics.

Voter Ideology and Candidate Positioning in the 2008 Presidential Election

2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen A. Jessee
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Statistical Estimation ◽  
Median Voter ◽  
Major Party ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
2008 Presidential Election ◽  
Ideological Position ◽  
John Mccain ◽  
American Elections ◽  
Actual Degree

Although classic Downsian theory predicts that candidates should converge to the ideological position of the median voter in the electorate, American elections generally feature major party candidates who offer divergent policy positions. Employing a survey and statistical estimation technique that allows for the estimation of the ideological position of candidates on the same scale as the distribution of voter ideology among voters, the author characterizes the actual degree of candidate divergence in the 2008 presidential election looking at the estimated stances of Barack Obama and John McCain. The results reveal that these candidates took positions that were closer to, and likely even more extreme than, the positions of their partisan and primary constituencies than to the nationwide voter median.

scholarly journals Campaign Finance Regulations and Public Policy

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
MARTIN GILENS ◽  
SHAWN PATTERSON ◽  
PAVIELLE HAINES
Keyword(s):  
Government Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Campaign Finance ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Synthetic Control Method ◽  
Citizens United ◽  
Independent Expenditures ◽  
American Elections ◽  
The U.S

Abstract Despite a century of efforts to constrain money in American elections, there is little consensus on whether campaign finance regulations make any appreciable difference. Here we take advantage of a change in the campaign finance regulations of half of the U.S. states mandated by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. This exogenously imposed change in the regulation of independent expenditures provides an advance over the identification strategies used in most previous studies. Using a generalized synthetic control method, we find that after Citizens United, states that had previously banned independent corporate expenditures (and thus were “treated” by the decision) adopted more “corporate-friendly” policies on issues with broad effects on corporations’ welfare; we find no evidence of shifts on policies with little or no effect on corporate welfare. We conclude that even relatively narrow changes in campaign finance regulations can have a substantively meaningful influence on government policy making.

A model of electoral competition between national and regional parties

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mihir Bhattacharya
Keyword(s):  
Median Voter ◽  
Electoral Competition ◽  
Policy Position ◽  
National Party ◽  
Dimensional Model ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Regional Parties ◽  
Homogeneous Regions ◽  
Outcome Function

We consider a one-dimensional model of electoral competition with national and regional parties. There are two regions and three parties—one national party and one regional party for each region. We divide the paper into two parts— homogeneous and heterogeneous regions. In the former, the policy positions of the national party and the regional party of the region with the greater number of constituencies coincide with the favorite policy position of the region-wide median voter. In the latter, the national party chooses a policy position in a maximal isolation set, while the two regional parties choose policies on the same side of the national party’s policy as their own respective region-wide medians. For a given outcome function, the national party performs better when the regions are heterogeneous. In the homogeneous regions case, the national party can at best do as well as the regional party of the region with the greater number of constituencies. Our results are broadly consistent with intuition and evidence.

scholarly journals Follow the foreign leader? Why following foreign incumbents is an effective electoral strategy

2019 ◽  
pp. 135406881988470
Author(s):  
Lawrence Ezrow ◽  
Tobias Böhmelt ◽  
Roni Lehrer ◽  
Hugh Ward
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Median Voter ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Policy Diffusion ◽  
Model Specification ◽  
Stage Model ◽  
Two Stage ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Election Strategies

Previous research suggests that political parties respond to left–right policy positions of successful foreign political parties (“foreign leaders”). We evaluate whether this is an effective electoral strategy: specifically, do political parties gain votes in elections when they respond to successful foreign parties? We argue that parties that follow foreign leaders will arrive at policy positions closer to their own (domestic) median voter, which increases their electoral support. The analysis is based on a two-stage model specification of parties’ vote shares and suggests that following foreign leaders is a beneficial election strategy in national election because it allows them to better identify the position of their own median voter. These findings have important implications for our understanding of political representation, parties’ election strategies, and for policy diffusion.

scholarly journals Yes, But Did They Learn Anything? An Experimental Investigation of Voter Decision Making on Foreign Policy Issues

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (04) ◽  
pp. 880-884
Author(s):  
Jacqueline M. Sievert ◽  
Michael K. McDonald ◽  
Charles J. Fagan ◽  
Niall Michelsen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Experimental Investigation ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Young Voters ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
American Elections ◽  
Voter Decision Making

ABSTRACTDo non-graded, one-time, short presentations by a panel of professors on foreign policy issues affect voting behavior among students? Did the panel itself contribute to students’ understanding of the importance of foreign policy in evaluating candidates? Did presentations lead to changes in students’ candidate preferences? And, finally, did the event lead to sustained changes in students’ preferences? We find that even though issues of foreign policy tend not to be front and center in American elections, when young voters are presented with information about candidate’s foreign policy positions, as we did in this study, it does seem to have an impact on which candidate they plan on voting for.

What Do Americans Know about Campaign Finance?

2021 ◽  
pp. 28-44
Author(s):  
Daron R. Shaw ◽  
Brian E. Roberts ◽  
Mijeong Baek
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Campaign Finance ◽  
Campaign Spending ◽  
The Other ◽  
Regulatory Environment ◽  
Citizens United ◽  
The Public ◽  
The One ◽  
Basic Intuition ◽  
Money In Politics

Chapter 2 establishes a baseline by reviewing public opinion concerning money and politics, pre– and post–Citizens United, focusing on what Americans know about money in politics and campaign spending. On the one hand, given that citizens are typically not well informed about politics, it should come as no surprise that they do not know all that much about candidate spending or campaign finance. On the other hand, the public is not completely off base with respect to its sense of money in politics, and this basic intuition is perhaps even sharper in the post–Citizens United era. The data suggest that while Americans know a little bit about campaign finance, there is no systematic correlation between the regulatory environment of the state and how much people in that state know about campaign finance.

Campaign Strategy and Party Loyalty: The Electoral Relevance of Candidate Decision-Making in the 1964 Congressional Elections

1969 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 515-520 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Schoenbebger
Keyword(s):  
Congressional Elections ◽  
Influential Factors ◽  
Strategic Decisions ◽  
Majority Party ◽  
Campaign Strategy ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Electoral Outcomes ◽  
Minority Party ◽  
American Elections ◽  
The Times

The analyst of campaign strategy in American elections is usually confronted by the apparent impossibility of demonstrating that campaign behavior actually matters. Although candidates possess numerous options in strategy and tactics, it is clear that incumbent members of the majority party (commonly joint phenomena) usually win and opposition candidates of the minority party usually lose. Lewis Froman has even argued that “ … the behavior of the candidates during the campaign is one of the least influential factors in determining electoral outcomes.The effects, if any, of campaign behavior are the residue to be examined after the partisan distribution of the electorate, the nature of the times, the power of incumbency and any number of variables beyond the ready control of the candidates themselves have been employed to explain or predict the popular vote distribution. The perceived general ineffectiveness of candidate strategy and tactics is usually explained by the low public saliency of the typical election contest, in which most voters are unlikely to be aware even of the names of the candidates, much less their policy positions or, presumably, any other of their behaviors.But this circumstance may change when “ordinary” election contests are connected to contests of much higher saliency, especially that for the Presidency. It is at this time, at least, when the strategic decisions and behaviors of certain classes of candidates may attract the attention of voters otherwise preoccupied with that more dramatic battle for power.

scholarly journals Making a Beast With Green Backs: The Legal Battle Over Money in American Elections

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 13-17
Author(s):  
Thomas Edward Chidiac
Keyword(s):  
Electoral System ◽  
Citizens United ◽  
American Elections ◽  
Legal Battle

An examination of the legal battle over Citizens United and its consequences for our electoral system.

Corporate politicking, together: trade association ties, lobbying, and campaign giving

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Kowal
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
Court Decision ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Trade Association ◽  
Citizens United ◽  
American Elections ◽  
Corporate Lobbying

AbstractScholars and politicians in recent years have become concerned with rising levels of inequality among Americans, heightened in the aftermath of the 2010 Supreme Court decision inCitizens United v. F.E.C.The suspicion over an ever larger influence of corporate and elite interest over public policy has brought about significant public backlash, even becoming a key platform of reformist candidates such as Sen. Bernie Sanders. In large part, these fears have yet to be realized, as many corporations have chosen to remain on the sidelines in American elections and have not fully taken advantage of their newfound rights. At the same time, we have observed a stark rise in corporate lobbying expenditures in recent decades. What explains the puzzle of how corporations choose to engage in new or expanded forms of political activity, and even what drives the spread of corporate norms? This study investigates the conditions under which corporations may come to embrace political action.

scholarly journals Citizens United: A Theoretical Evaluation

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 567-574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlo Prato ◽  
Stephane Wolton
Keyword(s):  
Political Advertising ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
Regulatory Environment ◽  
Theoretic Model ◽  
Theoretical Evaluation ◽  
Citizens United ◽  
Policy Information ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Game Theoretic Model

The 2010 US Supreme Court’s decision on Citizens United v. Federal Electoral Commission lifted restrictions on the funding by unions and corporations of groups engaging in independent political advertising (outside spending). Many have criticized the majority opinion’s premise that outside spending cannot corrupt or distort the electoral process. Fewer have examined the implications of this decision under the Court’s assumptions. Using a game-theoretic model of electoral competition, we show that informative outside spending by a group whose policy preferences are partially aligned with the electorate may reduce voter welfare. This negative effect is more likely when policy information is highly valuable for the electorate or congruence between the group and voters is high. We further show that the regulatory environment produced by the Court’s decision is always suboptimal: the electorate would be better off if either groups were allowed to coordinated with candidates or if outside spending was banned altogether.

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