Mediocracy

•We study the recruitment of individuals in the political sector.•We build an equilibrium model of political recruitment by two competing parties.•We show that politicalparties may choose to recruit only mediocre politicians.•“Mediocracy” is more likely in proportional than in majoritarian elections.

We study the recruitment of individuals in the political sector. We propose an equilibrium model of political recruitment by two political parties competing in an election. We show that political parties may deliberately choose to recruit only mediocre politicians, in spite of the fact that they could select better individuals. Furthermore, we show that when political talent is scarce this phenomenon is more likely to occur in proportional than in majoritarian electoral systems.