Arbeitspapier
Guns, Environment, and Abortion: How Single-Minded Voters Shape Politicians' Decisions
We study how electoral incentives affect policy choices on secondary issues, which only minorities of voters care intensely about. We develop a model in which office and policy motivated politicians choose to support or oppose regulations on these issues. We derive conditions under which politicians flip-flop, voting according to their policy preferences at the beginning of their terms, but in line with the preferences of single-issue minorities as they approach re-election. To assess the evidence, we study U.S. senators’ votes on gun control, environment, and reproductive rights. In line with our model’s predictions, election proximity has a pro-gun effect on Democratic senators and a pro-environment effect on Republican senators. These effects only arise for non-retiring senators, who represent states where the single-issue minority is of intermediate size. Also in line with our theory, election proximity has no impact on senators’ decisions on reproductive rights, because of the presence of single-issue minorities on both sides.
- Language
-
Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
-
Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 6963
- Classification
-
Wirtschaft
Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
Human Rights Law; Gender Law
Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics: General
- Subject
-
electoral incentives
environment
gun control
reproductive rights
- Event
-
Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
-
Bouton, Laurent
Conconi, Paola
Pino, Francisco
Zanardi, Maurizio
- Event
-
Veröffentlichung
- (who)
-
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
- (where)
-
Munich
- (when)
-
2018
- Handle
- Last update
-
10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET
Data provider
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Bouton, Laurent
- Conconi, Paola
- Pino, Francisco
- Zanardi, Maurizio
- Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
Time of origin
- 2018
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