Post election redistributive strategies of representatives: A partial theory of the politics of redistribution

✍ Scribed by Norman Frohlich; Joe Oppenheimer

• Publisher: Springer US
• Year: 1984
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 811 KB
• Volume: 42
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0048-5829
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00124155

✦ Synopsis

Vote maximizing candidates for reelection often have an incentive to redistribute income. They target certain constituent groups as recipients for income transfers and others as income losers. Resulting situations bifurcate sharply. Some have characteristics of 'fairness' and moderation and others of exploitation. The conditions which lead to these sorts of situations are identified. It is shown that recipients of income transfers need not be central members of the incumbents' coalitions but rather may at times be 'fence straddlers.' * An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the 1981 meetings of the Public Choice Society in New Orleans, La. The authors wish to thank the faculty of the Center for the Study of American Business, Washington University, St. Louis, who invited us to present our ideas on this topic in a guest lecture, and thus began Our work on it. Thanks are also due to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the University of Manitoba Research Fund Committee who supported the consultations necessary for developing our ideas. We are also indebted to the Department of Political Science at Utah State which similarly encouraged our work on this topic with an invitation to present these ideas to them in 1982. We appreciate the critical assistance and helpful comments given us by John Atwell