When voters fear that politicians may have a right-wing bias or that they may be in‡uenced or corrupted by the rich elite, signals of true left-wing conviction are valuable. As a consequence, even a moderate politician seeking reelection chooses ‘populist’policies— i.e., policies to the left of the median voter— as a way of signaling that he is not from the right. Truly right-wing politicians respond by choosing more moderate, or even left-of-center policies. This populist bias of policy is greater when the value of remaining in o¢ ce is higher for the politician; when there is greater polarization between the policy preferences of the median voter and right-wing politicians; when politicians are indeed more likely to have a hidden right-wing agenda; when there is an intermediate amount of noise in the information that voters receive; when politicians are more forward-looking; and when there is greater uncertainty about the type of the incumbent. We show that similar results apply when some politicians can be corrupted or in‡uenced through other non-electoral means by the rich elite. We also show that ‘soft term limits’ may exacerbate, rather than reduce, the populist bias of policies.
A Political Theory of Populism
D. Acemoglu,Georgy Egorov,Georgy Egorov,Konstantin Sonin,Konstantin Sonin,Konstantin Sonin
Published 2013 in Social Science Research Network
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- Publication year
2013
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Social Science Research Network
- Publication date
2013-05-01
- Fields of study
Economics, Political Science
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