Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-t5pn6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-16T21:02:53.163Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Primaries and Candidate Polarization: Behavioral Theory and Experimental Evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 September 2018

JONATHAN WOON Open the ORCID record for JONATHAN WOON [Opens in a new window]
JONATHAN WOON*
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
*
Jonathan Woon is a Professor, Department of Political Science, Department of Economics (secondary), and Pittsburgh Experimental Economics Laboratory, 4437 Wesley W. Posvar Hall, Pittsburgh, PA, 15260 (woon@pitt.edu).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Do primary elections cause candidates to take extreme, polarized positions? Standard equilibrium analysis predicts full convergence to the median voter’s position with complete information, but behavioral game theory predicts divergence when players are policy-motivated and have out-of-equilibrium beliefs. Theoretically, I show that primary elections can cause greater extremism or moderation, depending on the beliefs candidates and voters have about their opponents. In a controlled incentivized experiment, I find that candidates diverge substantially and that primaries have little effect on average positions. Voters employ a strategy that weeds out candidates who are either too moderate or too extreme, which enhances ideological purity without increasing divergence. The analysis highlights the importance of behavioral assumptions in understanding the effects of electoral institutions.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 112 , Issue 4 , November 2018 , pp. 826 - 843
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Thanks to Keith Dougherty, Sandy Gordon, Greg Huber, Scott Moser, Charlie Plott, Danielle Thomsen, Alan Wiseman, the editor and anonymous reviewers, participants at the Yale CSAP American Politics Conference, seminar participants at Washington University in St. Louis, University of Oxford (Nuffield College CESS), IC3JM (Juan March Institute), and the Pittsburgh Experimental Economics Lab for helpful comments and feedback. I am also indebted to Kris Kanthak for vigorous discussions during the early stages of this project. Previous versions of the paper were presented at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, the 2016 Public Choice Society Meeting, and the 2016 Midwest Political Science Association Conference. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (SES-1154739) and was approved by the University of Pittsburgh Institutional Review Board under protocol PRO14060001. Replication material is available on the American Political Science Review Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/YUNDMQ.

References

REFERENCES

Abramowitz, Alan I., and Webster, Steven. 2016. “The Rise of Negative Partisanship and the Nationalization of US Elections in the 21st Century.” Electoral Studies 41: 12–22.Google Scholar
Adams, James, and Merrill, Samuel. 2008. “Candidate and Party Strategies in Two-Stage Elections Beginning with a Primary.” American Journal of Political Science 52 (2): 344–59.Google Scholar
Adams, James, and Merrill, Samuel. 2014. “Candidates’ Policy Strategies in Primary Elections: Does Strategic Voting by the Primary Electorate Matter?” Public Choice 160 (1–2): 7–24.Google Scholar
Aldrich, John H., and Lupia, Skip. 2011. “Experiments and Game Theory’s Value to Political Science.” In Cambridge Handbook of Political Science, eds. Druckman, James N., Green, Donald P., Kuklinski, James H. and Lupia, Arthur. New York: Cambridge University Press, 89–101.Google Scholar
Ansolabehere, Stephen, Snyder, James M. Jr., and Stewart, Charles III. 2001. “Candidate Positioning in US House Elections.” American Journal of Political Science 45 (1): 136–59.Google Scholar
Aragones, Enriqueta, and Palfrey, Thomas R.. 2007. “The Effect of Candidate Quality on Electoral Equilibrium: An Experimental Study.” American Political Science Review 98 (1): 77–90.Google Scholar
Aronson, Peter H., and Ordeshook, Peter C.. 1972. “Spatial Strategies for Sequential Elections.” In Probability Models of Collective Decision Making, eds. Niemi, Richard G. and Weisberg, Herbert F.. Columbus, OH: Merrill, 298–331.Google Scholar
Aumann, Robert, and Brandenburger, Adam. 1995. “Epistemic Conditions for Nash Equilibrium.” Econometrica 63 (5): 1161–80.Google Scholar
Battaglini, Marco, Morton, Rebecca B., and Palfrey, Thomas R.. 2010. “The Swing Voter’s Curse in the Laboratory.” The Review of Economic Studies 77 (1): 61–89.Google Scholar
Belot, Michele, Duch, Raymond, and Miller, Luis. 2015. “A Comprehensive Comparison of Students and Non-Students in Classic Experimental Games.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 113: 26–33.Google Scholar
Bendor, Jonathan B. 2010. Bounded Rationality and Politics, Vol. 6, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Bendor, Jonathan, Diermeier, Daniel, Siegel, David A., and Ting, Michael M.. 2011. A Behavioral Theory of Elections. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bendor, Jonathan, Mookherjee, Dilip, and Ray, Debraj. 2006. “Satisficing and Selection in Electoral Competition.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 1 (2): 171–200.Google Scholar
Bonica, Adam. 2013. “Ideology and Interests in the Political Marketplace.” American Journal of Political Science 57 (2): 294–311.Google Scholar
Brady, David W., Han, Hahrie, and Pope, Jeremy C.. 2007. “Primary Elections and Candidate Ideology: Out of Step with the Primary Electorate?” Legislative Studies Quarterly 32 (1): 79–105.Google Scholar
Brady, Henry E., and Sniderman, Paul M.. 1985. “Attitude Attribution: A Group Basis for Political Reasoning.” American Political Science Review 79 (4): 1061–78.Google Scholar
Bullock, Will, and Clinton, Josh. 2011. “More of a Molehill than a Mountain: The Effects of the Blanket Primary on Elected Officials’ Behavior from California.” Journal of Politics 73 (3): 915–30.Google Scholar
Callander, Steven, and Wilson, Catherine H.. 2007. “Turnout, Polarization, and Duverger’s Law.” The Journal of Politics 69 (4): 1047–56.Google Scholar
Calvert, Randall. 1985. “Robustness of the Multidimensional Voting Model: Candidates’ Motivations, Uncertainty, and Convergence.” American Political Science Review 29 (1): 69–95.Google Scholar
Camerer, Colin. 2003. Behavioral Game Theory: Experiments in Strategic Interaction. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Camerer, Colin F., Ho, Teck-Hua, and Chong, Juin-Kuan. 2004. “A Cognitive Hierarchy Model of Games.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 119 (3): 861–98.Google Scholar
Chen, Kong-Pin, and Yang, Sheng-Zhang. 2002. “Strategic Voting in Open Primaries.” Public Choice 112 (1-2): 1–30.Google Scholar
Cherry, Todd L., and Kroll, Stephan. 2003. “Crashing the Party: An Experimental Investigation of Strategic Voting in Primary Elections.” Public Choice 114: 387–420.Google Scholar
Cho, Seok-Ju, and Kang, Insun. 2014. “Open Primaries and Crossover Voting.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 27 (3): 351–79.Google Scholar
Coleman, James S. 1972. “The Positions of Political Parties in Elections.” In Probability Models of Collective Decision Making, eds. Niemi, Richard G. and Weisberg, Herbert F.. Columbus, OH: Merrill, 332–57.Google Scholar
Collier, Kenneth E., McKelvey, Richard D., Ordeshook, Peter C., and Williams, Kenneth C.. 1987. “Retrospective Voting: An Experimental Study.” Public Choice 53 (2): 101–30.Google Scholar
Cooper, David J., Kagel, John H., Lo, Wei, and Gu, Qing Liang. 1999. “Gaming Against Managers in Incentive Systems: Experimental Results with Chinese Students and Chinese Managers.” American Economic Review 89 (4): 781–804.Google Scholar
Crawford, Vincent P. 2003. “Lying for Strategic Advantage: Rational and Boundedly Rational Misrepresentation of Intention.” American Economic Review 93 (1): 133–49.Google Scholar
Crawford, Vincent P., Costa-Gomes, Miguel A., and Iriberri, Nagore. 2013. “Structural Models of Nonequilibrium Strategic Thinking: Theory, Evidence, and Applications.” Journal of Economic Literature 51 (1): 5–62.Google Scholar
Dickson, Eric. 2011. “Economics versus Psychology Experiments: Stylization, IIncentive, and Deception.” In Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political Science, eds. Druckman, James N., Green, Donald P., Kuklinski, James H. and Lupia, Arthur. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Druckman, Jamie N., and Kam, Cindy D.. 2011. “Students as Experimental Participants: A Defense of the “Narrow Data Base”.” In Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political Science, eds. Druckman, James N., Green, Donald P., Kuklinski, James H., and Lupia, Arthur. New York: Cambridge University Press, 41–57.Google Scholar
Eckel, Catherine, and Holt, Charles A. 1989. “Strategic Voting in Agenda-Controlled Committee Experiments.” American Economic Review 79 (4): 763–73.Google Scholar
Falk, Armin, and Heckman, James J.. 2009. “Lab Experiments Are a Major Source of Knowledge in the Social Sciences.” Science 326 (5952): 535–8.Google Scholar
Fatas, Enrique, Neugebauer, Tibor, and Tamborero, Pilar. 2007. “How Politicians Make Decisions: A Political Choice Experiment.” Journal of Economics 92 (2): 167–96.Google Scholar
Fiorina, Morris P., and Plott, Charles R.. 1978. “Committee Decisions Under Majority Rule: An Experimental Study.” The American Political Science Review 72 (2): 575–98.Google Scholar
Fischbacher, Urs. 2007. “z-Tree: Zurich Toolbox for Ready-Made Economics Experiments.” Experimental Economics 10 (2): 171–8.Google Scholar
Frechette, Guillaume R., Kagel, John H., and Lehrer, Steven F.. 2003. “Bargaining in Legislatures: An Experimental Investigation of Open versus Closed Amendment Rules.” American Political Science Review 97 (2): 221–32.Google Scholar
Fudenberg, Drew, and Levine, David K.. 1998. The Theory of Learning in Games. Vol. 2, Cambridge, MA: MIT press.Google Scholar
Gerber, Elisabeth R., and Morton, Rebecca B.. 1998. “Primary Election Systems and Representation.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 14 (2): 302–24.Google Scholar
Hacker, Jacob S., and Pierson, Paul. 2006. Off center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Hall, Andrew B. 2015. “What Happens When Extremists Win Primaries?” American Political Science Review 109 (1): 18–42.Google Scholar
Healy, Andrew, and Malhotra, Neil. 2009. “Myopic Voters and Natural Disaster Policy.” American Political Science Review 103 (3): 387–406.Google Scholar
Herzberg, Roberta Q., and Wilson, Rick K.. 1988. “Results on Sophisticated Voting in an Experimental Setting.” Journal of Politics 50 (2): 471–86.Google Scholar
Hirano, Shigeo, Snyder, James M. Jr., Ansolabehere, Stephen, and Hansen, John Mark. 2010. “Primary Elections and Partisan Polarization in the U.S. Congress.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 5 (2): 169–91.Google Scholar
Hirano, Shigeo, Snyder, James M. Jr., and Ting, Michael M.. 2009. “Distributive Politics with Primaries.” Journal of Politics 71 (4): 1467–80.Google Scholar
Huber, Gregory A., Hill, Seth J., and Lenz, Gabriel S.. 2012. “Sources of Bias in Retrospective Decision Making: Experimental Evidence on Voters’ Limitations in Controlling Incumbents.” American Political Science Review 106 (4): 720–41.Google Scholar
Hummel, Patrick. 2013. “Candidate Strategies in Primaries and General Elections with Candidates of Heterogeneous Quality.” Games and Economic Behavior 78: 85–102.Google Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto, Sood, Gaurav, and Lelkes, Yphtach. 2012. “Affect, Not IdeologyA Social Identity Perspective on Polarization.” Public Opinion Quarterly 76 (3): 405–31.Google Scholar
Jackson, Matthew O., Mathevet, Laurent, and Mattes, Kyle. 2007. “Nomination Processes and Policy Outcomes.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 2 (1): 67–92.Google Scholar
Kollman, Ken, Miller, John H., and Page, Scott E.. 1992. “Adaptive Parties in Spatial Elections.” American Political Science Review 86 (4): 929–37.Google Scholar
Mann, Thomas E., and Ornstein, Norman J.. 2013. It’s Even Worse than it Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
McCarty, Nolan, Poole, Keith T., and Rosenthal, Howard. 2006. Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
McCarty, Nolan, Poole, Keith T., and Rosenthal, Howard. 2013. Political Bubbles: Financial Crises and the Failure of American Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
McCuen, Brian, and Morton, Rebecca B.. 2010. “Tactical Coalition Voting and Information in the Laboratory.” Electoral Studies 29 (3): 316–28.Google Scholar
McGhee, Eric, Masket, Seth, Shor, Boris, Rogers, Steven, and McCarty, Nolan. 2014. “A Primary Cause of Partisanship? Nomination Systems and Legislator Ideology.” American Journal of Political Science 558 (2): 337–51.Google Scholar
McKelvey, Richard D., and Ordeshook, Peter C.. 1982. “Two-Candidate Elections without Majority Rule Equilibria An Experimental Study.” Simulation & Games 13 (3): 311–35.Google Scholar
McKelvey, Richard D., and Ordeshook, Peter C.. 1985. “Sequential Elections with Limited Information.” American Journal of Political Science 29 (3): 480–512.Google Scholar
Meirowitz, Adam. 2005. “Informational Party Primaries and Strategic Ambiguity.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 17 (1): 107–36.Google Scholar
Mintz, Alex, Redd, Steven B., and Vedlitz, Arnold. 2006. “Can We Generalize from Student Experiments to the Real World in Political Science, Military Affairs, and International Relations?” Journal of Conflict Resolution 50 (5): 757–76.Google Scholar
Morton, Rebecca B. 1993. “Incomplete Information and Ideological Explanations of Platform Divergence.” American Political Science Review 87 (2): 382–92.Google Scholar
Morton, Rebecca B., and Williams, Kenneth C.. 2010. Experimental Political Science and the Study of Causality: From Nature to the Lab. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nagel, Rosemarie. 1995. “Unraveling in Guessing Games: An Experimental Study.” The American Economic Review 85 (5): 1313–26.Google Scholar
Oak, Mandar P. 2006. “On the Role of the Primary System in Candidate Selection.” Economics & Politics 18 (2): 169–90.Google Scholar
Ostrom, Elinor. 1998. “A Behavioral Approach to the Rational Choice Theory of Collective Action: Presidential Address, American Political Science Association, 1997.” American Political Science Review 92 (1): 1–22.Google Scholar
Owen, Guillermo, and Grofman, Bernard. 2006. “Two-Stage Electoral Competition in Two-Party Contests: Persistent Divergence of Party Positions.” Social Choice and Welfare 26 (3): 547–69.Google Scholar
Palfrey, Thomas R. 2006. “Laboratory Experiments.” In Oxford Handbook of Political Economy, eds. Weingast, Barry R. and Wittman, Donald A.. New York: Oxford University Press, 915–36.Google Scholar
Plott, Charles R., and Levine, Michael E.. 1978. “A Model of Agenda Influence on Committee Decisions.” American Economic Review 68 (1): 146–60.Google Scholar
Poole, Keith T., and Rosenthal, Howard. 1984. “The Polarization of American Politics.” The Journal of Politics 46 (4): 1061–79.Google Scholar
Poole, Keith T., and Rosenthal, Howard. 1997. Congress: A Political-Economic History of Roll Call Voting. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Potters, Jan, and van Winden, Frans. 2000. “Professionals and Students in a Lobbying Experiment: Professional Rules of Conduct and Subject Surrogacy.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 43: 499–522.Google Scholar
Rietz, Thomas. 2008. “Three-Way Experimental Election Results: Strategic Voting, Coordinated Outcomes and Duverger’s Law.” Handbook of Experimental Economics Results 1: 889–97.Google Scholar
Sheffer, Lior, Loewen, Peter John, Soroka, Stuart, Walgrave, Stefaan, and Sheafer, Tamir. 2018. “Nonrepresentative Representatives: An Experimental Study of the Decision Making of Elected Politicians.” American Political Science Review 112 (2): 302–21.Google Scholar
Simon, Herbert A. 1955. “A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 69 (1): 99–118.Google Scholar
Smirnov, Oleg. 2009. “Endogenous Choice of Amendment Agendas: Types of Voters and Experimental Evidence.” Public Choice 141 (3–4): 277–90.Google Scholar
Snyder, James M. Jr., and Ting, Michael M.. 2011. “Electoral Selection with Parties and Primaries.” American Journal of Political Science 55 (4): 782–96.Google Scholar
Stahl, Dale O., and Wilson, Paul W.. 1995. “On Players’ Models of Other Players: Theory and Experimental Evidence.” Games and Economic Behavior 10 (1): 218–54.Google Scholar
Van der Straeten, Karine, Laslier, Jean-Francois, Sauger, Nicolas, and Blais, Andre. 2010. “Strategic, Sincere, and Heuristic Voting under four Election Rules: An Experimental Study.” Social Choice and Welfare 35 (3): 435–72.Google Scholar
Wittman, Donald A. 1983. “Candidate Motivations: A Synthesis of Alternative Theories.” American Political Science Review 77 (1): 142–57.Google Scholar
Woon, Jonathan. 2012a. “Democratic Accountability and Retrospective Voting: A Laboratory Experiment.” American Journal of Political Science 56 (4): 913–30.Google Scholar
Woon, Jonathan. 2012b. “Laboratory Tests of Formal Theory and Behavioral Inference.” In Experimental Political Science: Principles and Practices, eds. Kittel, Bernhard, Luhan, Wolfgang J. and Morton, Rebecca B.. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 54–71.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Woon supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Woon supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 191.4 KB