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International Journal of Business and Economics

International Journal of Business and Economics
Volume 5, No. 1

April​, 2006
 
On the Ideology Motive in Political Economy Models
 
Volker Grossmann
University of Fribourg, Switzerland CESifo, Germany
and
Institute for the Study of Labor, Germany
 
Abstract
This note provides a simple political economy model which captures the trade-off of political parties between catering to their "core" constituency and appealing to middle-of-the-road voters, who are not intrinsically attached to a party. The analysis reconciles seemingly ideology-motivated behavior of political parties with vote-maximization.
 
Keywords:ideological polarization, partisan constituency, political parties.
 
JEL Classifications:D72.
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