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This paper explores the potential of elections to change our emotions and modify the relevance that voters assign to self-interest and group-identity issues. We examine this question by analyzing the 1998–2016 period of the Catalan and Basque regional elections. The analysis exploits that Basques pushed to leave Spain in the early 2000s, and Catalans pursued independence about fifteen years later. When the separatist goal emerges, two issues gain relevance. First, there is a significant rise of identity politics, associated with the territory's culture and language, to the detriment of other issues that traditionally explain vote choice, such as the left-right ideology, the degree of regional autonomy, or the economic discontent. Second, the territory becomes more divisive, big cities align against dominant separatist parties, and rural areas align with independentists. We conclude that material self-interests dilute and group-identity factors emerge to determine vote decisions in times of national dissolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the electoral incentives for redistributive income taxation when the incumbent strategically decides the degree of tax progressivity. Progressivity makes the median voter prefer more government spending, which induces left-wing incumbents to foster progressivity and right-wing incumbents to propose flat taxation. However, if (i) more progressivity reduces middle-income voters' fear of left-wing policies with respect to right-wing policies, (ii) parties' office holding incentives are high, and (iii) there is low uncertainty about the median voter, then left-wing incumbents opt for less-progressive taxation and right-wing incumbents opt for more progressive taxation. In addition, we show that voters' risk aversion over private consumption implies that right-wing incumbents propose more progressivity in comparison with left-wing incumbents proposing less progressivity. Our theoretical prediction can explain why, for example, Democrat Kennedy contributed to decreasing progressive taxation and Republican Bush contributed to increasing progressive taxation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plurality rule is mostly criticized from being capable of choosing an alternative considered as worst by a strict majority. This paper considers elections in which the agenda consists of potential candidates strategically choosing whether or not to enter the election. In this context, we examine the ability of scoring rules to fulfil the Condorcet criterion. We show for the case of three potential candidates that Plurality rule is the only scoring rule that satisfies a version of the Condorcet criterion in two cases: 1) when preferences are single-peaked and, 2) when preferences are single-dipped. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study a model of competition between two political parties with policy compromise. There is a special interest group with well-defined preferences on political issues. Voters are of two kinds: impressionable and knowledgeable. The impressionable voters are influenced by the election campaigns. The objective of the parties is to obtain the maximum votes. Parties compete for financial support from a given interest group. Each party proposes a platform in exchange for an amount of campaign funds, and the interest group decides whether to accept or reject each of these proposals. We show that parties' competition resembles, to a certain extent, Bertrand competition. Furthermore, in equilibrium only one party gets funds from the interest group. This result differs from the one obtained in a similar model by Grossman and Helpman in which, in equilibrium, both parties are financed by the interest group. This difference arises because Grossman and Helpman assume that it is the interest group who makes the proposals to the political parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]