Melina Cosentino (BGSE) 16.11.2022

I adapt the Hotelling-Downs model with three parties and add an ''antipartisan''-component. Antipartisans vote for the party located furthest away from the party they dislike. While the standard game without antipartisanship has no equilibrium in pure strategies, antipartisanship allows for three types of outcomes: in equilibrium, parties spread over the spectrum, locate on extreme positions, or no equilibrium exists.
The model provides a theoretical explanation for phenomena as those observed in Brazil in 2018: an exogenous increase in the share of antipartisans, followed by relocation on the spectrum towards the extrema. I characterise conditions under which such relocations can be explained by antipartisanship only.