Abstract

This study makes use of the concept of ideology to answerimportant questions of political competition. I develop amulticandidate model in which voters use ideology as asimplifying device that helps them to choose a candidate in anoisy environment. Three important results arise for thehomogeneous-polity case. First, the candidate with moreresources is the one more likely to win the election. Second,a merger between two parties might yield to a higher expectedplurality for the candidate of the newly formed party. Third,political convulsion yields to a decrease in the expectedplurality for the incumbent candidate. © 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers.