Timeline for Why doesn't Hotelling's law seem to apply to the stances taken by political parties?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
29 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 23 at 23:16 | comment | added | nanoman | "initially both shops are equidistant from each other" -- it's not clear what this means. If there are two shops, there is only one distance between them. You need multiple distances to define "equidistant". Perhaps you mean equidistant with each other and with the boundaries of the domain? | |
| Nov 22 at 20:45 | answer | added | Acccumulation | timeline score: 0 | |
| Nov 22 at 15:06 | comment | added | hitchhiker | I would say it does apply. See how Republicans and Democrats move closer to each other late in the election cycle. You just want to make sure that no third party sets up shop at the fringes. | |
| Nov 22 at 15:04 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | (Not to say immigration wouldn't be an electoral issue without Trump. Of course it would, it always is. But the actual number of miles of fence and height of the wire? The idea that physical infrastructure is an essential place to spend? Don't think so. That was very much a 2016 thing). | |
| Nov 22 at 15:01 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | And also, I realise it's super-unfashionable to say this, but some politicians do seek to change public opinion rather than just locate it and stand in that spot :-) Even if we can use economic theory to somehow prove that it's not an optimal strategy, so many politicians attempt it (even if only early in their careers, and then again at the end when they have nothing to lose) that it has explanatory power. Trump, for example, is quite good at it. Hardly anybody cared about literal walls one way or the other before he started going on about it, now a big chunk of the USA loves them. | |
| Nov 22 at 12:55 | comment | added | Walter Mitty | The question assumes that apparent ideology and actual ideology are the same thing. To some extent, ballot box success depends on making insincere but credible promises. If you look at the promises made by political parties and not the way they govern, there is much more central tendency. | |
| Nov 22 at 10:13 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | Or to put it another way: regardless of your party there are more individuals choosing not to vote than there are voters for your opponent. | |
| Nov 22 at 10:06 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | I suppose the crux of this is, "I would expect any individual to vote for the candidate that best represents them". If the turnout in an election is, say, a healthy 80%, then 20% of individuals in the electorate definitely did not vote for the candidate that best represents them. Some of the 80% might not have done either, but that's harder to measure! Turnout in the 2024 US presidential election was around 64% or so. | |
| Nov 22 at 10:03 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | In the recent US election coverage (or rather, the part of it that made it to the UK), I was struck by how often people talked about "the number of Democrats/Republicans voting" as opposed to "the number of people voting Democrat/Republican". Of course floating voters still exist, but it may be that this idea of the parties competing for votes, at least over so short a timescale as a single election, is becoming less significant over time. Separately they're also persuading their supporters actually to vote, and taking your opponents' policies acts against this goal. | |
| Nov 21 at 18:42 | answer | added | Ken Horne | timeline score: 0 | |
| Nov 21 at 17:54 | answer | added | Douglas | timeline score: 2 | |
| Nov 21 at 16:21 | vote | accept | LivesayEngineer | ||
| Nov 21 at 16:20 | comment | added | David S | @Aetol The policies are the products as much as the representative. Politicians are selling themselves and the policies. The whole party brand is based on ideas and values, not so much specific candidates. The ideas and values are "what they sell" and the differences between the two sides of the argument are the "where they are" part of this. An example is the abortion topic is a product being sold and being in favor or against is the location of the product. The ideas and values contain both the product and location. | |
| Nov 21 at 15:01 | answer | added | haxor789 | timeline score: 3 | |
| Nov 21 at 14:55 | comment | added | Aetol | @Obie2.0 all parties "sell" the same "products": presidents, congresspeople, and so on. Yes, they appeal to different ideas and values, but that's "where they are", not "what they sell". | |
| Nov 21 at 14:36 | comment | added | willeM_ Van Onsem | I don't really see much difference between political parties to be honest. | |
| Nov 21 at 12:15 | answer | added | timuzhti | timeline score: 7 | |
| Nov 21 at 9:27 | answer | added | Stig Hemmer | timeline score: -1 | |
| Nov 21 at 5:03 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Nov 21 at 3:10 | answer | added | user182601 | timeline score: 35 | |
| Nov 20 at 23:41 | answer | added | Starship | timeline score: 0 | |
| Nov 20 at 22:49 | comment | added | Obie 2.0 | If you think a bit about why Walmart is different from Saks and apply that analogy to political parties, it should be easy to see why it does not happen. Hint: are Walmart and Saks actually competing for the same customers under the same circumstances? | |
| Nov 20 at 21:43 | answer | added | ohwilleke♦ | timeline score: 15 | |
| Nov 20 at 21:26 | comment | added | LivesayEngineer | The reason why I would expect it to apply to political parties, is because it does seem like both parties are competing for the same votes. I would expect any individual to vote for the candidate that best represents them. | |
| Nov 20 at 21:25 | comment | added | LivesayEngineer | So your suggesting that individuals aren't just voting for the party/candidate that most closely matches their viewpoints. Rather that there are two (or more) separate groups that will only vote for a candidate in their group. Or phrased another way, if there were two candidates, both in the very left, an individual wouldn't vote for the candidate that was more to the right, because both are too left for them. | |
| Nov 20 at 21:20 | history | edited | LivesayEngineer | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Nov 20 at 21:18 | comment | added | Obie 2.0 | There are countless cases where it does not apply in economics, as well, largely because "the same market" is a fuzzy concept. Why doesn't Saks Fifth Avenue sell the same products as Walmart? So why expect it to apply to political parties? | |
| S Nov 20 at 20:59 | review | First questions | |||
| Nov 20 at 23:47 | |||||
| S Nov 20 at 20:59 | history | asked | LivesayEngineer | CC BY-SA 4.0 |