Alienation,indifference and the choice of ideological position

In this paper we describe a simple model of individual voting behavior and present its implications for the candidate positioning problem under both vote and plurality maximization. Under our assumptions, some voters at the extremes of the ideological spectrum typically will not vote because they are alienated by the equilibrium location of candidates. There will also be some voters in the middle of the ideological spectrum who will not vote because they are indifferent between the equilibrium locations of the candidates. Both the abstention from alienation and from indifference arise explicitly from utility maximization. Once we allow for alienation and indifference, the two alternative candidate objective functions (vote maximization and plurality maximization) yield different outcomes. In particular, we show that under vote maximization the Median Voter (or Minimum Differentiation) outcome will not arise. On the other hand, under plurality maximization, the Median Voter outcome may or may not hold, depending on the distribution of voter preferences.We should like to thank Jerry Fusselman, Jon Hamilton, Mel Hinich, Charlie Holt and participants at seminars at the University of Virginia, Northwestern University and the 1989 Meetings of the Public Choice Society and the Economic Science Association for their helpful comments.