Anthony Downs and the Spatial Theory of Party Competition

Anthony Downs and the Spatial Theory of Party Competition We tend tend nowa nowad days ays to judge udge the cred crede entia ntials ls of a demo democ crat ratic sys yste tem, m, representative or not, in terms of the tightness of the t it provides between public opinion and policy outputs. The idea that representation is to be favoured because it loosens this t seems increasingly alien. Pluralists argued that ordinary citizens could and did inuence government policy but that that they they did so primar primarily ily throug through h their their members membership hip of press pressure uregr group oups. s. Policy Policy outputs outputs broadly broadly reected reected the inputs inputs of competing competing pressur pressuregro egroups ups and becaus because e press pressure uregr group oup members membership hip was broad broadly ly repre represen sentat tative ive of public public opinion, this meant that policyma!ing could be described as a s being democratic. Pluralists accepted that some groups would dominate policyma!ing in particular sectors, especially business, but denied that it was structurally predisposed to do so. Pluralists Plurali sts "#ahl$ "#ahl$ argued argued that that the prosp prospect ect of having having to ght ght electio election n forced forced political leaders to anticipate and so respond to public opinion. %otell %otelling ing&s &s argum argument ent'' the tenden tendency cy of politi political cal partie parties s to conver converge ge upon upon the centre, therefore each party strives to ma!e its platform as much li!e the other&s as possible. Political parties, (chumpeter suggests, compete to attract the support of voters.  This competition, as %otteling argues, pushes the parties toward the centre ground "shop&s main street metaphor$.  The median voter theorem )ssumptions' *. +. . -. /. 1. 2.

There There are are only only two two part parties ies Polit Politica icall space space is onedimen onedimensio sional nal Parties Parties can can move to and and occupy any any point in in this onedimens onedimensional ional space space Parties arties are are vote votema maimi imizers zers 0oters vote vote for the party party closest closest to them them in political political space space There There is perfe perfect ct info informa rmatio tion n 0oters oters prefer preferenc ences es are are ed ed

Whatever the distribution of voters, there will always be a median voter, a person whose preferences are such that there are eactly as many voters to their right as to their left