The real swing voter's curse / James A. Robinson, Ragnar Torvik.
Material type:
TextSeries: Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. 14799.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. : National Bureau of Economic Research, 2009Description: 10 p. ; 22 cmSubject(s): Political violence -- Econometric models | Zimbabwe -- Politics and government -- 1980-LOC classification: HB1 | .N38 no. 14799Online resources: Click here to access online Summary: A key idea in political economy is that policy is often tailored to voters who are not ideologically attached - swing voters. We show, however, that in political environments where political parties can use repression and violence to exclude voters from elections, they may optimally target the swing voters. This is because they anticipate that if they had to compete for the support of these voters, they would end up giving them a lot of policy favors. Hence in weakly institutionalized political environments swing voters are cursed rather than blessed. We illustrate the analysis with a discussion of recent political events in Zimbabwe.
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University of Macedonia Library Βιβλιοστάσιο Β (Stack Room B) | Research Papers | HB1.N38 no. 14799 (Browse shelf (Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 0013125723 |
Includes bibliographical references.
A key idea in political economy is that policy is often tailored to voters who are not ideologically attached - swing voters. We show, however, that in political environments where political parties can use repression and violence to exclude voters from elections, they may optimally target the swing voters. This is because they anticipate that if they had to compete for the support of these voters, they would end up giving them a lot of policy favors. Hence in weakly institutionalized political environments swing voters are cursed rather than blessed. We illustrate the analysis with a discussion of recent political events in Zimbabwe.
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