The Spatial Theory of Electoral Competition: Instability, Institutions, and Information

Abstract

The author reviews the literature on the spatial theory of electoral competition, initiated by Downs. Two main lines of inquiry are distinguished. The first is concerned with the purely analytical properties of majority preference as an aggregation rule for mapping individual preferences into social preferences. And the second is devoted to providing explanations of the choices of political decisionmakers, and the consequences of these choices, within a simple plurality electoral system. These two lines are intimately related and in the review the author seeks to explore this relationship.