Many political commentators diagnose an increasing polarization of the U.S. electorate into two opposing camps. However, in standard spatial voting models, changes in the political preference distribution are irrelevant as long as the position of the median voter does not change. We show that...

We develop a model in which profits of media firms depend on their audience ratings, and maximizing profits may involve catering to a partisan audience by suppressing information that the partisan audience does not like hearing. While voters are rational, understand the nature of the news...

We consider a setting in which several groups of individuals with common interests (``clubs") compete with each other for recognition by other individuals. Depending on the context, recognition may be expressed by these other individuals joining a club, or choosing one club to admire. Clubs...

One of the most widely discussed phenomena in American politics today is the perceived increasing partisan divide that splits the U.S. electorate. A central contested question is whether this diagnosis is actually true, and if so, what is the underlying cause. We develop a model that relates the...

How does electoral accountability affect the effectiveness of terrorism prevention in a democ- racy? We analyze the connection between electoral accountability and policy effectiveness in the context of terrorism prevention. We develop a formal model of an interaction between a government, a...

We develop a formal model in which the government provides public goods in different policy fields for its citizens. We start from the basic premise that two office-motivated candidates have differential capabilities in different policy fields, and compete by proposing how to allocate government...

Many observers argue that political polarization, particularly on social and cultural issues, has increased in the United States. How does this influence the political competition on economic issues? We analyze this question using a framework in which two officemotivated candidates differ in...

This paper analyses a model in which two groups repeatedly compete with each other for a prize in every time period. We assume that there is a status quo bias: if there is a fight today, yesterday's winner is in a stronger position than the other group. Hence, a change of the status quo has...