{"title":"Rational erraticism","authors":"F. Bohn, Xue Wang","doi":"10.1177/09516298221081807","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Trump and Bolsonaro are perceived as erratic presidents, but they may actually be quite rational. We explore two channels of manipulation in a polarized society. One relates to swing voters and their perception of a president’s competence. The other one captures the effort by a president to appeal and mobilize her base voters. We model erraticism in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, but our model could also be applied to other realms of political manipulation. We find that erratic freedom propaganda directed against state-administered lockdowns may help a president in her re-election bid. Paradoxically, if the challenger gains popular support or increases voter mobilization against the president, it is optimal for the president to further increase erratic propaganda in order to increase the mobilization of her own supporters. Our predicted surge in voter mobilization is actually a main outcome of the 2020 US elections.","PeriodicalId":51606,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","volume":"34 1","pages":"219 - 235"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6000,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09516298221081807","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Trump and Bolsonaro are perceived as erratic presidents, but they may actually be quite rational. We explore two channels of manipulation in a polarized society. One relates to swing voters and their perception of a president’s competence. The other one captures the effort by a president to appeal and mobilize her base voters. We model erraticism in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, but our model could also be applied to other realms of political manipulation. We find that erratic freedom propaganda directed against state-administered lockdowns may help a president in her re-election bid. Paradoxically, if the challenger gains popular support or increases voter mobilization against the president, it is optimal for the president to further increase erratic propaganda in order to increase the mobilization of her own supporters. Our predicted surge in voter mobilization is actually a main outcome of the 2020 US elections.
期刊介绍：
The Journal of Theoretical Politics is an international journal one of whose principal aims is to foster the development of theory in the study of political processes. It provides a forum for the publication of original papers seeking to make genuinely theoretical contributions to the study of politics. The journal includes rigorous analytical articles on a range of theoretical topics. In particular, it focuses on new theoretical work which is broadly accessible to social scientists and contributes to our understanding of political processes. It also includes original syntheses of recent theoretical developments in diverse fields.
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