Welcome to the new version of CaltechAUTHORS. Login is currently restricted to library staff. If you notice any issues, please email coda@library.caltech.edu
Published January 31, 2018 | Submitted
Report Open

Endogenous Issue Salience in an Ownership Model of Elections

Abstract

We analyze a model of electoral competition based on the issue-ownership theory of campaigns. In the model, parties invest resources to manipulate the salience of various issues, and the salience of an issue is the probability a voter casts her ballot according to her party preferences on that issue. Parties use campaigns to prime voters to think about different issues. Our results uncover Riker's "dominance principle" and suggest that parties will generally campaign on one issue. The two-dimensional version of the model demonstrates that parties talk past each other and indicates that competition will be most fierce when parties are similarly effective campaigners and the issues are not naturally salient. With more than two parties, there is a potential for free-riding on the campaigns of parties who are the most effective.

Additional Information

Thanks to Chit Basu, Rob Carroll, John Duggan, Patrick Egan, Tasos Kalandrakis, Mattan Sharkansky, Jennifer Smith, Yannis Vassiliadis, and participants at the Midwest Political Science Association's 2014 Annual Conference for valuable feedback and discussions. We are responsible for all remaining errors.

Attached Files

Submitted - salienceAscencioGibilisco.pdf

Files

salienceAscencioGibilisco.pdf
Files (962.1 kB)
Name Size Download all
md5:df331b5e71213e68cb174e1b5dcf74e6
962.1 kB Preview Download

Additional details

Created:
August 20, 2023
Modified:
October 18, 2023