Protest voting in plurality elections: a theory of voter signaling

This paper develops a model of protest voting in which unsatisfied voters may abandon their most preferred candidate even though he or she has a good chance of winning, in the hope that this signal of disaffection will lead to downstream improvements in that candidate's performance. We use a sp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Public choice 2011-09, Vol.148 (3/4), p.395-418
Main Authors: Kselman, Daniel, Niou, Emerson
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Calculus
Candidates
Competitiveness
Economics
Economics and Finance
Elections
Expected utility
Extremist parties
Hypotheses
Ideological influences
Ideology
Plurality voting
Political candidates
Political economy
Political parties
Political protest
Political protests
Political Science
Politics
Preferences
Profiles
Public Finance
Radical parties
Signalling
Spatial models
Strategic behaviour
Studies
Third party
Voter behavior
Voter expectations
Voters
Voting
Voting behavior
Voting behaviour
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Summary:This paper develops a model of protest voting in which unsatisfied voters may abandon their most preferred candidate even though he or she has a good chance of winning, in the hope that this signal of disaffection will lead to downstream improvements in that candidate's performance. We use a spatial model to identify voters whose ideological profile makes protest voting an option, and an expected utility model to identify the conditions under which potential protest voters will in fact use their vote as a signaling device.Aggregate-level data provide suggestive evidence in the argument's favor.
ISSN:0048-5829
1573-7101
DOI:10.1007/s11127-010-9661-2