Formal Modes of Spatial Electoral Competition with Multi-Candidate Parties and Valence Issue

这项建议寻求资金，以发展政党作为选举机构的正式理论。该项目首先展示了将政党视为自利行为者的集合的后果，这些行为者的目标有时是相互冲突的，而不是将它们视为始终具有相同利益的单一行为者。该项目的第二部分侧重于选民（和候选人）有相似的强烈兴趣的问题。设想这些问题的一种方式是，它们类似于各方纳入其平台的核心项目。这个项目的两个部分都使调查人员能够回答关于一方在一段时间内采取的立场的问题，因为它试图预测对方的立场。这些项目还使研究人员能够深入了解哪些党员最忠诚，以及党的领导人是否能做些什么来促进党的和谐。

This proposal seeks funding to develop a formal theory of parties as electoral institutions. The project begins by showing the consequences of treating political parties as collections of self-interested actors whose goals are sometime in conflict, rather than treating them as unitary actors who always have the same interests. The second part of the project focuses on issues in which voters (and candidates) have similar, strong interests. One way of conceiving those issues is that they are similar to core items that parties fold into their platforms. Both parts of hte project enable the invesitgators to answer questions about the positions that a party adopts over time as it tries to anticipate it's opposing party's position. The projects also enable the researchers to gain insights into which party members will be most loyal and whether party leaders can do anything to encourage party harmony.