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AbstractVoters often favor candidates who benefit them individually but may coordinate their support with their social group on other candidates in exchange for policies targeting their group. In a laboratory experiment, I induce group identities to investigate the behavior of voters facing such trade-offs. I find that groups with low within heterogeneity often secure the club good from a candidate who is also individually beneficial to a majority of the group. In more heterogeneous groups, coordination on that candidate often fails and while the group still receives club goods, it is from a candidate whose policies are otherwise individually costly to most of the group. The results highlight the role strategic considerations play in the formation of group-based electoral coalitions.

While scholars and pundits alike have expressed concern regarding the increasingly "tribal" nature of political identities, there has been little analysis of how this social polarization impacts political selection. In this paper, we incorporate social identity into a principal-agent model of political representation and characterize the impact of social polarization on voting behavior. We show that identity has an instrumental impact on voting, as voters anticipate that political representatives' ex post policy decisions have an in-group bias. We also conduct a laboratory experiment to test the main predictions of the theory. In contrast to existing work that suggests social polarization may have a positive impact by increasing participation, we show that social polarization causes political representatives to take policy decisions that diverge from the social optimum, and voters to select candidates with lower average quality.

While scholars and pundits alike have expressed concern regarding the increasingly "tribal" nature of political identities, there has been little analysis of how this social polarization impacts political selection. In this paper, we incorporate social identity into a principal-agent model of political representation and characterize the impact of social polarization on voting behavior. We show that identity has an instrumental impact on voting, as voters anticipate that political representatives' ex post policy decisions have an in-group bias. We also conduct a laboratory experiment to test the main predictions of the theory. In contrast to existing work that suggests social polarization may have a positive impact by increasing participation, we show that social polarization causes political representatives to take policy decisions that diverge from the social optimum, and voters to select candidates with lower average quality.

In a laboratory experiment, we explore the effects of group identities on the principal-agent relationship between voters and representatives. In an adverse selection framework with observable effort, voters can choose to condition their reelection choices on representatives' effort alone, beliefs about representatives' competence, or both of those jointly. We show that inducing social identities increases the weight of representatives' effort in voters' reelection decisions. Further, when voters and representatives share a social identity, representatives tend to invest less effort and their effort is independent of their competence. In contrast, 'out-group' representatives compensate for lower competence with higher effort and reduce effort when voters are likely to perceive them as competent. Voters often adopt laxer retention standards for representatives who are fellow group members and are responsive to evidence of other-regardingness from out-group representatives, but some voters actively resist treating representatives with shared identity more favorably and 'overcorrect' as a consequence. Adapted from the source document.

While scholars and pundits alike have expressed concern regarding increasing social polarization based on partisan identity, there has been little analysis of how social polarization impacts voting. In this paper, we incorporate social identity into a principal-agent model of political representation and characterize the influence of social polarization on partisan voting. We show that social identity has an indirect effect on voting through voters' beliefs regarding the ex post decision of political representatives on top of a direct effect through an expressive channel. We conduct a laboratory experiment designed to identify the relative effect of the two channels. We find that social polarization causes partisan voting, and that up to fifty-five percent of partisan voting is due to the indirect effect of social identity.

While scholars and pundits alike have been pointing to a trend of increasing partisan affect in the US, there has been very little analysis as to how partisan affect impacts the decisions of voters. We hypothesize that affective polarization may effect voting both through an expressive channel, as voters become more likely to vote instinctively, and through an instrumental channel, as voters expect candidates to take decisions that are more favorable towards their partisan in-group. To explore this hypothesis, we conduct a laboratory experiment designed to separate between the expressive and instrumental impact of affective polarization, and find evidence that affect significantly impacts subjects' voting decision through both channels. Importantly, however, we show that the instrumental impact of affective polarization depends on the underlying degree of polarization in policy preferences. Additionally, in contrast to the existing literature, our study demonstrates that affective polarization has a clear negative impact on social welfare by decreasing the likelihood that high valence candidates win elections. Lastly, we compare the impact of affect between groups that are formed using a neutral prime (minimal groups) and groups that are formed using the subjects' stated partisan identity. Surprisingly, we find no difference in voting behavior between the two treatments, implying that among a group of individuals that are otherwise relatively homogenous (university students) the impact of partisan identity is no greater than an arbitrary label.

Political parties not only aggregate the policy preferences of their supporters, but also have the ability to shape those preferences. Experimental evidence demonstrates that, when parties stake out positions on policy issues, partisans become more likely to adopt these positions, whether out of blind loyalty or because they infer that party endorsements signal options consistent with their interests or values. It is equally clear, however, that partisans do not always follow their party's lead. The authors investigate the impact of three party-level traits on partisan cue taking: longevity, incumbency, and ideological clarity. As parties age, voters may become more certain of both the party's reputation and their own allegiance. Governing parties must take action and respond to events, increasing the likelihood of compromise and failure, and therefore may dilute their reputation and disappoint followers. Incumbency aside, some parties exhibit greater ambiguity in their ideological position than other parties, undermining voter certainty about the meaning of cues. The authors test these hypotheses with experiments conducted in three multiparty democracies (Poland, Hungary, and Great Britain). They find that partisans more strongly follow their party's lead when that party is older, in the opposition, or has developed a more consistent ideological image. However, the impact of longevity vanishes when the other factors are taken into account. Underscoring the importance of voter (un)certainty, ideologically coherent opposition parties have the greatest capacity to shape the policy views of followers. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright holder.]