The Cartel Party Model and Spatial Competition: Framework for Model Integration

This work aims to build on the cartel party model and to connect it with the spatial model of party competition. The cartel party model was famously advanced by Katz and Mair (1995) and it inspired considerable literature in the years that followed. It accounts for the relationship between parties and the state, and for the collusion between parties, the later of which is of the interest for the proposed work. Additionally, the work which is proposed here draws inspiration from Downs’ (1957) famous model of spatial competition in politics, but considers multiparty, rather than two-party setting. The scholarly literature so far held that cartelization goes hand in hand with parties' policy convergence (Blyth and Katz 1997; Kitschelt 2000; Mair 1997; Pelizzo 2007). Therefore, the two presented models have been thought to arrive at the same conclusion, but from different starting points. However, does party collusion have to result with this policy convergence? In economics, cartel members need to decide on how to split the market (eg. Mankiw 2015, 350). Hence, if we turn to political market, is it possible that parties would diverge in an issue space, but in a manner which is mutually agreed upon? This is the main problem which inspires the proposed work. This work starts from an assumption that vote-maximizing parties in multiparty setting act purely unilaterally when they decide which positions to take in an issue space. Then, it suggests why it would be in their interest to collude by forming a cartel. A definition of cartel of parties is provided, which takes into account their spatial positioning. It is concluded that colluding parties can expect to increase their utility (coming to power or realizing policies) by diverging their positions. This work seeks to account for all three motives of party behavior (see Strom 1990, 572). Rational choice inspired models typically explore party behavior by assuming only one motive behind their actions. As a consequence, we have an intuitive problem of treating citizens and politicians as completely different "breeds of political animal" (Benoit and Laver 2006, 40). The former care about policies, whereas the later are concerned about coming to power. This work suggests that integrating cartel and spatial model of party behavior might open a possibility of overcoming the above mentioned problem. To apply theoretical ideas, this work examines two cases of party collusion from the Serbian party scene. The first one is the DS–SNS collusion from 2008–2009, and the second one is the SNS–DSS collusion from 2011. These cases demonstrate that the same political party (the SNS) shifted its position in an issue space in different directions, depending on its choice of partner party to collude with. Party shifts are analyzed against the background of EU–Kosovo dilemma, which perplexed Serbian parties since the country's democratization in 2000.