A large literature on expressive voting suggests that a component of voting decisions, separate from how voters weigh economic policy offers, is whether citizens derive direct utility or value from the act of voting, _V(x)_ , where _x_ denotes turning out to vote. Further, citizens may derive utility from aligning with parties who represent their social or ideological beliefs, _a_ , independent of actual policy choices, and from voting to support these parties, _z_ : _V(x, a, z)_ .<sup>12</sup> That is, voters may derive utility from seeing their “team” (the party which represents their ideological positions) win, regardless of whether their party actually implements policies consistent with their purported ideology. Candidates can, potentially, seek to implement a costly policy index _p_<sup>_h_</sup> , that is disliked by a majority of citizens because it would give them few benefits, but nevertheless win office and the power to implement it by targeting political strategies at manipulating _x_ , _a_ , and _z_ . By separating out demand, as latent voting over public policy from actual voting behavior, which is exercised on the supply-side of the market because it responds to nonpolicy variables _x, a, z,_ that candidates on the supply-side can manipulate, this framework accommodates a vast literature on expressive voting while retaining a focus on implications of political behavior for economic policy choices.

It is therefore possible for a citizen to _prefer_ optimal economic policies at _p_ =0, but nevertheless vote for a candidate who offers _p_ >0 because there are no candidates offering _p_ =0; and/or because the citizen derives utility from voting and therefore does not want to abstain. What the demand curve will then reflect for each point of _p_ —representing social costs due to foregone public goods—is the number of citizens who provide support to that policy by not coming out to act against it on the supply side.

For the switch to the supply-side as contenders for leadership, entry decisions are determined by very similar factors as in the citizen-candidates models: what policies are likely to result in equilibrium given how others are voting, and given who else is entering as contenders; how far those expected policies are from their own preferred positions; and, what are the costs of running for office. Prevalent models that emphasize the role of political institutions in determining policy outcomes emphasize the role of the costs entailed in running for and winning office. The framework here includes consideration of policy preferences in shaping entry, in addition to maintaining that political institutions that determine the costs of entry also matter. However, entry costs are subsumed into beliefs about the behavior of other contenders for leadership. For example, in contexts where entry costs are high, such as when powerful incumbents use the coercive power of the state to prevent contenders from emerging, the decision to enter would be shaped by beliefs about how this incumbent would respond. In contexts where entry costs are high because organized political parties control nomination, the decision to enter would be shaped by beliefs about the behavior of these political parties—how they choose candidates and how they mobilize voters around policy platforms.

The spread of electoral institutions across and within countries has significantly lowered entry costs for citizens because elections allow individuals to participate on the supply side as voters, compared to contexts where there are no elections. Incumbent leaders or organized parties on the supply side can still manipulate those entry-costs, such as by using violence and intimidation in weak institutional contexts, or passing new laws, such as literacy tests and poll taxes, to regulate voting in strong institutional costs

> 12 This summary is obtained from a review of the literature by Romer (1996).

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