Politicians can reshape competitive standards to their own comparative advantage

Evidence

Such efforts to create new, orthogonal axes of competition, dubbed “heresthetics” by William Riker (1986), privilege their creators ex ante: In effect, a party could set up the very standards on which other parties competed – the same standards which it could best fulfill. — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 651

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Riker’s ‘heresthetics’ — a party creating the orthogonal axis of competition it can best fulfill.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s question of how groups manufacture new enemies/dimensions when the old threat decays — heresthetics is a mechanism for manufacturing a new competitive dimension. — connects to: Political actors’ influence varies with opportunity, position, and skill

Broader Connections

• Political actors’ influence varies with opportunity, position, and skill #expands (0.78)