Candidates for political office can benefit from telling some voters that they
should vote for their opponent. That is the implication of Kai Konrad‘s theory
of ‘inverse campaigning’, published in the January 2004 issue of the
Economic Journal.
Konrad’s analysis suggests that politicians who are primarily motivated by the
desire for office are better off not proposing policies that channel large
benefits to a small group that can easily be identified. Indeed, they are better
advised to propose policies that cause considerable harm to such small
groups.
Consider an example. The Democratic National Platform in 2000 criticised the
Republicans’ proposed tax reform: ‘The Bush tax slash ... is bigger than any
cut Newt Gingrich ever dreamed of. It would let the richest 1% of Americans
afford a new sports car and middle class Americans afford a warm soda’.
Why would the Democrats like to inform 1% of American voters that they gain
so much from voting for the Republicans? The reason has to do with the 99%
Americans who do not belong to this group, but are decisive in who wins the
election.
Suppose you do not belong to the 1% very rich, and you had not figured out
whether you will gain or lose from a reform that mainly redistributes in
complex and non-transparent ways. The fact that there is this one group that
will win a lot tells you something: if they are among the winners of the reform,
this makes it more likely that you are among the losers. Hence, politicians
opposing a reform have an incentive to detect groups who benefit much from
the reform, and politicians who propose a policy have an incentive to detect
groups who lose from this reform.
The theory works well if voters are uncertain about what exactly a particular
policy means to them, if the policy mainly redistributes, but has few efficiency
effects.
Tax reform is a particularly good example. As most tax reforms are highly
complex packages with many simultaneous changes, it is almost impossible,
and certainly not rewarding for each single voter and taxpayer to calculate
through whether he or she will win or lose overall from the various changes
involved in the reform. But they know that what is good news for other groups
in society is typically bad news for them.
ENDS
Notes for Editors: ‘Inverse Campaigning’ by Kai Konrad is published in the
January 2004 issue of the Economic Journal.
Konrad is at WZB and Free University of Berlin.
For Further Information: contact Kai Konrad on +49-30-25491-401 (email:
kkonrad@wz-berlin.de); or RES Media Consultant Romesh Vaitilingam on
0117-983-9770 or 07768-661095 (email: romesh@compuserve.com).