A Theory of Political Competition over Military Policy and Income Redistribution

We discuss political competition games between Left and Right parties, in which the policy space is two dimensional. One issue is the choice of proportional tax rate, and the second is the allocation of tax revenue between military policies and social welfare policies. On these political issues, the stylized fact is that left-wing parties prefer higher tax rates and lower military expenditure than do right-wing parties. We examine the kinds of political environments in which this fact can be rationalized as the equilibrium outcome of a given political game. By adopting the notion of the party-unanimity Nash equilibrium [Roemer (1998; 1999; 2001; 2005)], not only voters' economic motivations, but also their ideological positions are shown to be crucial factors in explaining stylized party behavior.