Factions and Political Competition.

This paper presents a new model of political competition in which candidates belong to factions. Before elections, factions compete to direct local public goods to their local constituencies. The model of factional competition delivers a rich set of implications relating the internal organization of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Political Economy Vol. 119; no. 2; pp. 242 - 289
Main Authors: Persico, Nicola, Pueblita, José C. R., Silverman, Dan
Format: Article
Published: University of Chicago Press April 2011
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Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
Description
Summary:This paper presents a new model of political competition in which candidates belong to factions. Before elections, factions compete to direct local public goods to their local constituencies. The model of factional competition delivers a rich set of implications relating the internal organization of the party to the allocation of resources. In doing so, the model provides a unified explanation of two prominent features of public resource allocations: the persistence of (possibly inefficient) policies and the tendency of public spending to favor incumbent party strongholds over swing constituencies. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.