Journal of Electoral Studies

Issues

Home Issues Backissues Volume 31, No.1 Three-Party Game of Cooperation and Competition in Single Member District Election

Three-Party Game of Cooperation and Competition in Single Member District Election

Jue-shyan Wang and Hong-yu Chen
2022 / 05
Volume 29, No.1

pp.1-30
10.6612/tjes.202205_29(1).0001
Paper

Appendix

Abstract

Observing the process of the recent elections in Taiwan, we found that different political parties often negotiated with each other for the possibility of cooperation. Each party would decide whether to cooperate or not. This paper develops a threeparty game theoretical model of single-seat elections to analyze the conditions under which that minor political party would agree to cooperate with major political parties, and discusses the rationality of decision from each political party. According to the equilibrium results, cooperation between political parties only occurs when certain conditions are met. The cooperative partner is not restricted to the most powerful party. In addition, there is a separating equilibrium in the case of asymmetric information. This leads to the conclusion that the larger difference between the strong type and the weak type of the major political party is, the more common minor political party would cooperate with the weak type of the major political party. Moreover, no cooperation takes place when the minor political party has zero cost in political elections.

Keywords

party cooperation

party competition

subgame perfect equilibrium

sequential equilibrium