中文摘要
本文从理论与数据两方面研究在任者表现与政治极端主义之间的关系。理论建立在一个政治竞争空间模型之上,其中选民利用在任者执政期间的表现来更新对其能力的信念。更好的表现会为在任者带来选举优势,从而使其能够宣布更极端、更接近其理想点的竞选纲领。相应地,其挑战者面临选举劣势,因而会宣布更为温和的纲领以弥补这一劣势。为检验这些预测,我们使用2000—2012年间在任者自然灾害救灾表现以及美国众议院选举中候选人意识形态立场的数据。经验证据表明,灾后恢复方面表现更好,与相应在任者更为极端的意识形态立场及其挑战者更为温和的意识形态立场相关联。这些及其他经验结果均与模型预测一致。
Abstract
This paper studies the relationship between incumbents’ performance and political extremism, both with theory and data. The theory is based on a spatial model of political competition in which voters use the incumbent’s performance in office to update their beliefs about his competence. A better performance leads to the incumbent’s electoral advantage and so allows him to announce a more extreme platform closer to his bliss point. His challenger, in turn, faces electoral disadvantage and so announces a more moderate platform in order to compensate for it. To test these predictions, we use the data on incumbents’ performance in natural disaster relief and ideological positions of the candidates in the U.S. House of Representatives elections for the time period 2000–2012. The empirical evidence shows that a better performance in post-disaster recovery is associated with more extreme ideological positions of the corresponding incumbents and more moderate ideological positions of their challengers. These and other empirical results are in line with the model predictions.