This paper provides a comprehensive theoretical model of the political decision making process. Therein two ideologically different political parties compete for power. Their primary instrument in this competition are programmatic concessions in favor of voters and interest groups. As any...

Which motives drive the decision of a voter to approve or reject a policy proposal? The Public Choice literature distinguishes between instrumental and expressive voting motives. We investigate the importance of these motives by analysing the patterns of neural activity in different voting...

In an experiment designed to test for expressive voting, Tyran (JPubEc 2004) found a strong positive correlation between the participants' approval to a proposal to donate money for charity and their expected approval rate for fellow voters. This phenomenon can be due to a bandwagon effect or a...

This paper provides a comprehensive theoretical model of the political decision making process. Therein two ideologically different political parties compete for power. Their primary instrument in this competition are programmatic concessions in favor of voters and interest groups. As any...

Politiker und Wahlstrategen messen der politischen Mitte eine zentrale Bedeutung bei. Durch welche Charakteristika wird diese so genannte (neue) Mitte bestimmt? Welche Politik können wir von diesem Wettkampf um die politische Mitte am Ende erwarten?

We present an economic experiment on the impact of social information on voter behaviour and find strong support for bandwagon behaviour in voting decisions. In total, 418 subjects participated in the experiment. Bandwagon behaviour is found among both male and female subjects.