Political Advertising: A Prisoner’s Dilemma
The American people are more unhappy with the government than they have been in many years. A recent poll by Gallup has revealed that only 13 percent of Americans approve of Congress. Although the approval rating of Congress is typically not very high, it was only at 32% since Gallup first began polling in 1974, it was as high as 55% in 1998, and has been gradually slipping over the course of the last decade or so. Since 2012, Congress has only polled at a 20% approval rating or higher 3 times. Although these low approval rating are due to a multitude of reasons, game theory can help explain our low opinion of politicians.
Effective political advertising is an extremely important part of any modern political campaign. Modern campaigns include enormous amounts of advertising, from ads on the internet and television, to rallies and speeches. Political advertisement allows politicians to make their arguments, point out flaws in their opponents, and get voters to become familiar and comfortable with them. Unfortunately, Americans don’t trust their politicians, and one of the reasons why this is true is because political advertising itself, a politician’s tool for reaching out to the public, is a prisoner’s dilemma.
Negative advertising is an effective tool for defeating a political opponent, and therefore is popular among politicians. If one politician uses negative advertising, or slanders and lies about their opponent, and the other politician doesn’t follow suit, the politician who uses negative advertising and similar tactics will be at an advantage. On the other hand, the politician who doesn’t use these tactics will be at a disadvantage. If both politicians advertise in a positive and truthful manner, it doesn’t hurt our perception of either politicians or politicians as a whole, but neither side gains a significant advantage over the other. If both politicians use negative advertising, it hurts the public’s perception of politicians and politics. Voters who are deluged with negative information about either candidate will naturally not think very highly about either one. This is very similar to the prisoner’s dilemma which we have studied in class, where neither player wants to be the one who cooperates when the other one doesn’t. In this situation, neither politician wants to be the one who isn’t using negative advertising when his opponent is. As a result, both politicians are trapped slandering and lying about each other, because if they quit that strategy, they risk losing an election. Over many election cycles, voters begin lose trust in politicians, resulting in the low approval rating of Congress and the lack of trust in our government that we see today.
The prisoner’s dilemma:
In this chart, -5,5 represent one politician gaining an advantage in the election, while the other one loses the advantage. 0,0 represents neither politician gaining an advantage, and -1,-1 represents neither politician gaining an advantage over the other, but either politician being hurt by a slight decrease in the people’s perception of politicians. The Nash equilibrium is both of them using negative advertising, trapping them in a suboptimal result that slowly reduces our faith in the government over time.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidvinjamuri/2012/04/10/why-political-advertising-makes-americans-prefer-communism-to-congress/#5f3af8ec6cdc
http://www.gallup.com/poll/189848/no-improvement-congress-approval.aspx