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We study how office‐seeking parties use direct democracy to shape elections. A party with a strong electoral base can benefit from using a binding referendum to resolve issues that divide its core supporters. When referendums do not bind, however, an electorally disadvantaged party may initiate a referendum to elevate new issues. It does so with the goal of dividing its stronger opponent's supporters. We identify conditions under which direct democracy improves congruence between policy outcomes and voter preferences, but also show that it can lead to greater misalignment both on issues subject to direct democracy and those that are not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In list proportional representation (PR) systems, parties shape political selection. We propose a theory of party list choice and elections in list PR systems. Our results describe how a party allocates candidates of heterogeneous quality across list ranks depending on (1) its policy goals and (2) its competitive environment. We test our predictions on the universe of Swedish local politicians from 1991 to 2014. Although parties assign better candidates to higher ranks at all ballot levels, the pattern is most pronounced among electorally advantaged parties that have the strongest prospect of controlling the executive. Our findings challenge conventional accounts of candidate selection in which parties prioritize candidate quality in their nomination strategies only when constrained by electoral incentives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a new framework to study legislative representation in list proportional representation (PR) systems. Our model studies a legislator's incentives to balance the competing interests of party leaders and local voters under a variety of list PR systems. We consider open and closed lists, as well as flexible lists—in which both rank assignments and preference votes determine the order in which seats are filled. We find that more flexibility can worsen local representation. List flexibility also acts as a key mediator of the effect of voter partisanship on party cohesion. And, our analysis reveals that higher district magnitude encourages representatives to toe the party line under all ballot systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider an election between two parties that nominate candidates for office. The parties are polarized along a traditional cleavage, but they are also internally divided along a second issue dimension. We introduce a threat of entry from Outsider candidates, who have the prominence and resources to bypass party elites. We consider when voters will turn to Outsiders, and identify the conditions under which Outsiders will enter the election through an established party's nomination process, as opposed to circumventing established parties via a third‐party challenge. We further explore when the elites will fail to respond to the threat of Outsider candidates. Our framework highlights how established parties will be especially vulnerable to Outsider primary entry in periods of intense ideological polarization between the parties, and that this vulnerability is especially heightened for the majority party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study dynamic policymaking when today's policy agreement becomes tomorrow's status quo, agents account for the consequences of today's policies for future policy outcomes, and there is uncertainty about who will hold future political power to propose and veto future policy changes. Today's agenda setter holds back from fully exploiting present opportunities to move policy toward her ideal point whenever future proposer and veto players are likely to be aligned either in favor of reform or against it. Otherwise, agenda setters advance their short-run interests. Optimal proposals can vary discontinuously and nonmonotonically with political fundamentals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]