The Origins of Candidate Conditioned Cooperation in International Relations

• In Event: Meddling in Elections

Abstract

On many occasions foreigners attach special importance to the election of a specific candidate in a country's elections. Often, they support such candidates with resources, and in turn those candidates adopt positions the foreigners like. One could think that the emergence of such divisions is natural, but what does the candidate get in return? And could differential rates of compromise be the main drivers of the change in overall domestic political polarization? Corruption could be a potential driver of differing support for certain platforms. Contributions towards certain candidates would not achieve the desired effects and hence powers might refrain from these. A third option could be foreigners creating or facilitating a type of electoral bias that weakens representation thus allowing candidate to assume more unpopular positions without losing at the ballot box. In fact, outside intervention may be associated with a ``diminished democratic'' equilibrium, in which the outsiders detract from the overall welfare of the electorate. We explore these possibilities in the context of a formal model of elections with interested outsiders. We offer some preliminary evidence for the model's main predictions.

Authors

• Nikolay V. Marinov, University of Houston

• Johannes Bubeck, University of Mannheim