Does a disadvantaged candidate always choose an extremist program? When does a less competent candidate have an incentive to move to extreme positions in order to differentiate himself from the more competent candidate? Recent work answers by the affirmative — Groseclose (1999), Ansolabehere...

This paper analyzes secession and group formation in the general model of contests due to Esteban and Ray (1999). This model encompasses as special cases rent seeking contests and policy conflicts, where agents lobby over the choice of a policy in a one-dimensional policy space. We show that in...