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The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics pp 2715–2725Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Democratic Paradoxes

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Abstract

Formal models of voting have emphasized the mean voter theorem, namely, that all parties should rationally adopt identical positions at the electoral mean. The lack of evidence for this assertion is a paradox which this article attempts to resolve by considering an electoral model that includes ‘valence’ or non-policy judgements by voters of party leaders. In a polity such as Israel, based on proportional electoral rule, low-valence parties would adopt positions far from the centre, making coalition formation unstable. In Britain, by contrast, a party with a low-valence leader would be subject to the demands of non-centrist activists.

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Acknowledgment

This article is based on research supported by NSF Grant SES 024173. The table and figures are reproduced from Schofield and Sened (2006) by permission of Cambridge University Press.

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  1. http://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5

    Norman Schofield

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  1. Norman Schofield
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Schofield, N. (2018). Democratic Paradoxes. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2539

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