多党制中的协调与在任者优势——来自法国选举的证据

Journal of the European Economic Association · 2025 · [{"name": "Kevin Dano", "affiliation": ["Princeton University"]}, {"name": "Francesco Ferlenga", "affiliation": ["University of Warwick"]}, {"name": "Vincenzo Galasso", "affiliation": ["Bocconi University"]}, {"name": "Caroline Le Pennec", "affiliation": ["HEC Montréal"]}, {"name": "Vincent Pons", "affiliation": []}]

中文摘要

摘要：自由公正的选举应当激励当选官员付出努力，使公民能够选出具有代表性的政治家，并不时更换现任者。然而，现任优势以及多党制下可能出现的协调失败，可能危及这一过程。我们考察这两种力量是否会相互强化。利用法国两轮制地方选举和议会选举中的断点回归（RDD）设计，我们发现，险胜者再次参选的可能性高出33个百分点，赢得下一次选举的可能性高出25个百分点。再次参选的现任者会更多地个性化其竞选传播，且面临的意识形态相近的竞争者更少，这表明现任者所属阵营的政党比落选一方的政党协调得更为有效。一项补充性的断点回归分析显示，勉强进入决选的候选人也能吸引新选民。我们得出结论：政党围绕现任者进行的协调，以及选民围绕在上一次选举中获胜或获得知名度的候选人进行的协调，二者共同促成了现任者未来的成功。

Abstract

Abstract Free and fair elections should incentivize elected officials to exert effort and enable citizens to select representative politicians and occasionally replace incumbents. However, incumbency advantage and coordination failures possible in multi-party systems may jeopardize this process. We ask whether these two forces compound each other. Using a regression discontinuity design (RDD) in French two-round local and parliamentary elections, we find that close winners are more likely to run again and to win the next election by 33 and 25 percentage points, respectively. Incumbents who run again personalize their campaign communication more and face fewer ideologically close competitors, revealing that parties from the incumbent’s orientation coordinate more effectively than parties on the losing side. A complementary RDD shows that candidates who marginally qualify for the runoff also rally new voters. We conclude that party coordination on the incumbent and voter coordination on candidates who won or gained visibility in a previous election both contribute to incumbents’ future success.