Valence influence in electoral competition with rank objectives

International Journal of Game Theory. 2019. Vol. 48. No. 3. P. 713–753.

A. Shapoval, A. Zakharov, Weber S.

In this paper we examine the effects of valence in a continuous spatial voting model with two incumbent candidates and a potential entrant. All candidates are rank-motivated. We first consider the case where the low valence incumbent (LVC) and the entrant have zero valence, whereas the valence of the high valence incumbent (HVC) is positive. We show that a sufficiently large valence of HVC guarantees a unique equilibrium, where the two incumbents prevent the entry of the third candidate. We also show that an increase in valence allows HVC to adopt a more centrist policy position, while LVC selects a more extreme position. We also examine the existence of equilibrium for the cases where the LVC has higher or lower valence than the entrant.

Keywords: валентность, valence, electoral game, rank objective

Publication based on the results of: Construction of mathematical models designed for the analysis of data series, prediction of big systems’ evolution, and the control of the dynamics of these systems (2018)