Vox Populi, Vox Dei? Tacit Collusion in Politics

3 Importantly, we argue that the collusion equilibria can break down if there is a shock to the location of the median voter or if there are changes in the configuration of the party system. [...] We interpret the proposition (and, more generally, the notion of collusion regions and the corresponding restricted game) as allowing competition within the restricted set of allowed collusion policies Xi, but moving outside of these regions is punished by the other candidates playing the threat. [...] We divide politicians into three different groups: the left bloc (the Social Democrats, the Left Party, and the Green Party), the right bloc (the Center Party, the Liberal Party, the Moderate Party, and the Christian Democrats), and Sweden Democrats. [...] The right bloc parties are the Center Party, the Liberal Party, the Moderate Party, and the Christian Democrats; 1 indicates a strong agreement with a statement and 5 indicates a strong disagreement with a statement. [...] The number of competitors and barriers to entry can affect the sustainability of collusion in the context of firms, and intuitively, such factors could also be important in the political arena.19 Such a model could have implications for understanding the rapid rise of populist parties, which could be a result of previous collision among established parties that is broken up due to entry.