Striking a balance: how to win over new voters without losing the traditional base

Although Emmanuel Macron originally presented as a centrist candidate in 2017, he has since adopted a more conservative stance on certain issues, such as security and immigration in the presidential election campaign in 2022. This ideological shift is evidence of the President’s strategy to attract right-wing voters while at the same time hoping to retain the support of centrists through his social and economic accomplishments. The manoeuvre is intended to fulfil two objectives: neutralise the threat posed by right-wing and far-right candidates, and broaden his appeal across the political spectrum. But is it actually possible for Macron to achieve this without alienating his electoral base?

In their article ‘Location Games with References’, published in the scientific journal Games and Economic Behavior in 2023, economics researcher Gaëtan Fournier and engineer Amaury Francou use location theory, a sub-field of game theory, to explain how political parties and companies can choose to occupy strategic positions - both ideological and geographical - while assuming the costs when they deviate from a reference location.

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Dialogues économiques is a digital journal published by the Aix-Marseille School of Economics (AMU, CNRS, EHESS, Centrale Méditerranée). A gateway between academic research and society, Dialogues économiques provides all citizens with the keys to economic reasoning. Articles are published every two weeks.

The rationality of political choice

Game theory, theorised by mathematician John von Neumann and economist Oskar Morgenstern in their 1944 book Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, makes it possible to analyse and model the strategic behaviour of ‘players’ - individuals, parties, companies, etc. - in a variety of contexts. Via its numerous applications, game theory is used in a range of fields, from biology and geopolitics to sociology and computer science.

The Nash equilibrium, a key concept, occurs when no player can improve his situation by changing his strategy, if the others maintain theirs. In politics, the equilibrium can be interpreted as a theoretical prediction of possible alliances or compromises between parties. The American political scientist William H. Riker explored this topic in his book The Theory of Political Coalitions, published in 1962.