Does Electoral Volatility Beget Strong Allies? A Model of Multiparty Competition

• In Event: Political Competition and Conflict

Abstract

One fundamental issue of multi-party systems is the identification of future governments. To address this mandate problem, parties typically form various configurations of pre-electoral alliances. Despite being pervasive, little is know about the conditions facilitating different forms of pre-electoral alliances. This paper presents a model of electoral competition in which parties can form alliances before elections, and decide how binding these alliances should be. Parties face a trade-off between insuring themselves against large shifts in public opinion, and allowing flexibility to respond to changes in voters’ preferences. More binding alliances such as mergers help with the former, pre-electoral coalitions with the latter. The model shows how much electoral volatility is needed to sustain each type of alliance under political conditions that vary party ideological polarization and the electoral system’s proportionality.

Author

• Giovanna Invernizzi, Collegio Carlo Alberto