Symmetric Nash equilibrium of political polarization in a two-party system

TL;DR

This paper models political polarization in a two-party system using game theory, showing that candidates tend to converge to the same position relative to the median voter through strategic interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a symmetric Nash equilibrium framework for understanding candidate positioning and polarization in primary elections within a one-dimensional spectrum.

Findings

Candidates converge to the same distance from the median voter.

Best-response dynamics lead to symmetric candidate placement.

The model explains polarization as an equilibrium outcome.

Abstract

The median-voter hypothesis (MVH) predicts convergence of two party platforms across a one-dimensional political spectrum during majoritarian elections. From the viewpoint of the MVH, an explanation of polarization is that each election has a different median voter so that a party cannot please all the median voters at the same time. We consider two parties competing to win voters along a one-dimensional spectrum and assume that each party nominates one candidate out of two in the primary election, for which the electorates represent only one side of the whole population. We argue that all the four candidates will come to the same distance from the median of the total population through best-response dynamics.