The Voter Trap

Abstract

Across many democracies a dominant coalition holds a decisive bloc that is cross-pressured, siding with the rival on some issues and with the coalition on others, and it keeps the bloc by making the contest turn on the issues of the second kind. The pattern spans very different alignments, from the recent right in rich democracies to the earlier populist left in Latin America. Three puzzles follow. The dominant coalition does not moderate toward the bloc, the losing side cannot win it back even by moving to the bloc’s position, and no new party enters. I trace all three to one friction, brand-constrained competition in political narratives. Voters pick weekly among rival stories that bundle where each coalition stands with how to read the news, and what they learn hardens into a brand, reputation capital that prices later claims. A coalition anchors the contest where the rival’s record traps it, fogs the rest, and concedes a token. The voter, Bayesian given the narrative she runs, settles for a distant coalition at a widening welfare loss; the deep brand holds the trap in place, and only a surprising realization, rarer the deeper the brand, breaks it. North Carolina in 1898 illustrates it.