Who Represents Whom: Strategic Voting and Conservatism in Legislative Elections∗

This paper examines voting equilibria in a citizen-candidate model with multiple constituencies. Voters in the constituencies elect representatives into a legislative assembly to make a policy choice. Representatives both make policy proposals and vote on each others’ proposals. The model thus formalizes the distinction between advocated policy and enacted policy in representation problems. Under the advocated policy aspect, constituents prefer representatives whose preferences are close to their own. Under the enacted policy aspect, constituents want representatives who prefer less change of the status quo than they do, as this helps to insure against extreme policy outcomes. If this second motive is strong enough, citizens elect conservative legislators who are relatively reluctant to change the status quo. We show that this happens when constituencies are sufficiently heterogeneous with respect to their policy preferences. Our results shed light on a number of political phenomena. Particular attention is devoted to the issue of reform obstacles. We show show that legislative resistance to reform can arise in equilibrium even for projects that enjoy broad popular support in the electorate. Unlike in existing models, however, the reform deadlock is incomplete, and some reform will be undertaken in equilibrium.