"Trust Me, I Am Not Like Them": Political Signaling In A Credibility Crisis

Why is current political competition marked by extreme and anti-establishment rhetoric? The standard explanation-what we call the "polarization hypothesis"-is that voter preferences have shifted. We offer a different view. We argue that political extremism is a signaling device born from a low degree of credibility of political parties and institutions and competitive pressures in democratic systems. We call this "the signaling hypothesis". 

Political competition is usually analyzed as occurring along policy dimensions. However, in recent years, amid a growing credibility crisis of mainstream institutions, the credibility dimension has gained greater importance. While newcomers may find it difficult to compete on traditional policy grounds under normal conditions, during a credibility crisis they gain an additional margin of competition. To leverage this, they adopt extreme behavior and challenge established norms, to signal their outsider status to attract disillusioned voters and enhance their own credibility. 

We develop this theory and compare it to the polarization hypothesis. We suggest that the signal hypothesis better explains contemporary political competition in Western democracies, which we demonstrate using developments in French politics in the past decade and a half.

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