Signaling Competence with Policy Replacement

• In Event: Formal Models of Policymaking and Elections

Abstract

What strategic considerations incentivize political parties to replace policies passed by an opposing party? I study this question by analyzing a model in which a political party that values policy quality and reelection attempts to convey competence—the precision of their signal about a payoff-relevant state—through their decision to replace a policy passed by the opposing party. First, I show that when voters want to elect a competent party, the party’s decision to replace their opponent’s policy conveys competence. In contrast, the decision to retain the opponent’s policy conveys incompetence. As a result, the political party is only reelected when it replaces its opponent’s policy. Then, I show that reelection concerns push the party to replace their opponent’s policy weakly more frequently and with weakly more extreme policies than they would without reelection concerns.

Author

• Benjamin Shaver