We develop a model of endogenous party platform formation in a multidimensional policy space. Party platforms depend on the composition of the parties' primary electorate. The overall social outcome is taken to be a weighted average of party platforms and individuals vote strategically. Equilibrium is defined to obtain when no group of voters can shift the social outcome in its favor by deviating and the party platforms are consistent with their electorate. We provide sufficient conditions for existence and study the robustness properties of the sorting equilibria.
We develop a model of endogenous party platform formation in a multidimensional policy space. Party platforms depend on the composition of the parties' primary electorate. The overall social outcome is taken to be a weighted average of party platforms and individuals vote strategically. Equilibrium is defined to obtain when no group of voters can shift the social outcome in its favor by deviating and the party platforms are consistent with their electorate. We provide sufficient conditions for existence of equilibria. ; Ortuño-Ortín gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology Project BEC2001-1653 and Project BEC2001-0980, respectively; A. Gomberg gratefully acknowledges the financial support from the Asociación Mexicana de Cultura ; Publicado
Assesses the level of influence that the Russian Orthodox Church, ROC, has upon the Russian voters, politicians, and political elite with the question as to how well informed these voting groups themselves are of the ROC's official stance on any given subject, as well as to gain an understanding if outward homage to Orthodoxy has made a true change within the political arena. This train of thought is then applied to 12 different Russian political parties to test levels of influence of the ROC upon them. It is noted that most of the politicians and their respective parties utilize the jargon of the ROC and so examines the differing levels to which each party language attempts to embody the ROC's moral standards. Finds that the four major political parties often give more credence to the influence of the church than actually exists. Lastly looks at the Rodina bloc political parties and how they've assessed the need to incorporate ROC ideals into their jargon and voting, with the surprising twist that, while addressing themselves to the voting populace in terms of ROC standards, over a third of those that voted for them consider themselves to be atheists. Finds that very few of the parties truly utilize or identify with the ROC in practice, but rather couple ROC ideals with basic patriotism due to the church's historical place in Russian society. References. S. Fullmer
AbstractScience, Technology, and Innovation (STI) have been considered as critical tools in development processes, gaining growing importance in the public policy agenda. We assert that an intersubjective agreement about STI policy has emerged in Latin America from the beginning of the twenty‐first century. This operates as a developmental convention which is based on a hybrid theoretical rationale from neoclassical economics and the innovation systems approach. This process has been analyzed from different perspectives of innovation and political economy studies. However, as far as we know, the role of political parties in the construction and reproduction of STI conventions has not been studied. After illustrating the general assertion with stylized facts from the whole Latin American region, we study the platforms that Uruguayan political parties presented in the national elections between 2004 and 2019. Text analysis techniques show that platforms of both left‐ and right‐wing political parties were embedded in the current STI policy convention. However, critical discrepancies emerge in relation to policy implementation—the positive and negative agendas—which show that there has been political competition regarding the role of the state and of markets. This leads us to conclude that even though one can observe a shared set of building blocks on STI policy and development, there is competition within the current convention, suggesting that any agreement is illusory.
THIS PAPER ANALYZES A SPATIAL MODEL OF TWO-PARTY COMPETITION WHERE PARTIES ARE NOT MONOLITHIC DECISION MAKERS BUT COLLECTIONS OF SELF-MOTIVATED OFFICE HOLDERS. PARTY PLATFORMS ARE CHOSEN COLLECTIVELY BY INCUMBENT OFFICE HOLDERS. THE MAIN RESULT IS THAT IN A STABLE EQUILIBRIUM PARTY PLATFORMS DO NOT CONVERGE TO THE SAME POINT. INSTEAD, THE PARTIES CHOOSE PLATFORMS SO THAT VOTERS CAN DISTINGUISH BETWEEN THEM, AND THESE PLATFORMS DIVIDE THE SET OF LEGISLATIVE DISTRICTS CLEANLY ALONG PARTY LINES. ALL INCUMBENTS PREFER THIS SITUATION TO ONE WHERE THE PLATFORMS CONVERGE, BECAUSE IT IMPROVES THEIR OWN CHANCES OF REELECTION.
THE PARTY RESPONSIBILITY, SPATIAL, AND CLEAVAGE THEORIES MAKE DIFFERENT ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP OF PARTY ISSUE STANDS TO THE DISTRIBUTION OF PUBLIC OPINION. THIS STUDY MATCHED PROMISES IN REPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRATIC PLATFORMS FROM 1960 THROUGH 1980 WITH PUBLIC OPINION DATA FROM NATIONAL SURVEYS AND THEN DETERMINED THE OUTCOMES OF POLICY DECISIONS ON THOSE ISSUES. BOTH PARTIES TENDED TO ADOPT POSITIONS FAVORED BY A MAJORITY OF THE PUBLIC. PARTIES TENDED TO GO AGAINST POPULAR MAJORITIES ON ISSUES OF GREATEST CONCERN TO THEIR ESTABLISHED CONSTITUENCIES. THEREFORE, THE GREATEST SUPPORT WAS FOUND FOR THE CLEAVAGE THEORY AS AN EXPLANATION OF PARTY DECISION MAKING. THE DATA ALSO SUGGEST THAT PARTIES ARE INDEED AN IMPORTANT LINK BETWEEN PUBLIC OPINION AND PUBLIC POLICY.
As a political scientist who has managed issues in presidential campaigns, I have noticed the tensions between theory and practice. This tension was most evident in the Democratic party's decision to devalue its platform in the 1988 presidential elections. The decision revealed a serious misunderstanding of the political function of a platform, and contributed to Dukakis' poor showing in the general elections.
In this article, I make a first attempt at identifying how coalitions are represented in a state party's platform. Using the Christian Right as a test case for Republican coalition membership, I further examine the notion that platforms reflect elite opinion coalitions by linking coalition group influence to both elite opinion and the structure of the party organization. Using state Republican Party platforms from 2000, I identify the extent of Christian Right influence on each platform based on the proportion of platform paragraphs that focus on Christian Right issue positions and explain the variation in that proportion across states. My findings suggest that, indeed, the Christian Right's power as a coalition player is evident in state Republican Party platforms, and, at least for the Christian Right, it seems that both mass opinions and elite opinions are at work in determining the tone of the Republican Party platform.
