The Spatial Theory of Electoral Competition: Instability, Institutions, and Information

1983 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 439-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
D Austen-Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Preferences ◽  
Electoral Competition ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Spatial Theory ◽  
Aggregation Rule ◽  
Individual Preferences ◽  
Analytical Properties

The author reviews the literature on the spatial theory of electoral competition, initiated by Downs. Two main lines of inquiry are distinguished. The first is concerned with the purely analytical properties of majority preference as an aggregation rule for mapping individual preferences into social preferences. And the second is devoted to providing explanations of the choices of political decisionmakers, and the consequences of these choices, within a simple plurality electoral system. These two lines are intimately related and in the review the author seeks to explore this relationship.

scholarly journals Individual Preferences for Giving

2007 ◽  
Vol 97 (5) ◽  
pp. 1858-1876 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Fisman ◽  
Shachar Kariv ◽  
Daniel Markovits
Keyword(s):  
Utility Maximization ◽  
Social Preferences ◽  
Graphical Representations ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Individual Preferences ◽  
Dictator Games ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Budget Sets ◽  
Baseline Experiment

We utilize graphical representations of Dictator Games which generate rich individual-level data. Our baseline experiment employs budget sets over feasible payoff-pairs. We test these data for consistency with utility maximization, and we recover the underlying preferences for giving (trade-offs between own payoffs and the payoffs of others). Two further experiments augment the analysis. An extensive elaboration employs three-person budget sets to distinguish preferences for giving from social preferences (trade-offs between the payoffs of others). And an intensive elaboration employs step-shaped sets to distinguish between behaviors that are compatible with well-behaved preferences and those compatible only with not well-behaved cases. (JEL C72, D64)

The 2016 Electoral Reform in Mongolia: From Mixed System and Multiparty Competition to FPTP and One-Party Dominance

2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 511-531 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavel Maškarinec
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Competition ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Electoral Reform ◽  
District Level ◽  
Mixed System ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Party Dominance ◽  
Duverger's Law

This article tests the effects of a new electoral system that was introduced in Mongolia for the June 2016 elections. The decision to implement a first-past-the-post (FPTP) system instead of a mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) system, which was first and last used in the previous elections of 2012, was due to the April 2016 ruling of the Mongolian Constitutional Court on unconstitutionality of the list tier as one of the mechanisms for distributing seats within MMM. Through an analysis of national- and district-level results, this article addresses the question whether electoral competition at the district level was consistent with Duverger’s law and resulted in the restoration of bipartism, which had been disrupted in 2012 due to the use of MMM.

The Case of the Vanishing Marginals: The Bureaucracy Did It

1977 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morris P. Fiorina
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Change ◽  
Behavioral Change ◽  
Party Identification ◽  
Electoral Competition ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Electoral Behavior ◽  
Congressional Behavior ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Ordinary Citizens

Several authors have addressed the postwar decline of electoral competition on the congressional level. Some have attributed the decline to institutional change such as the redistrictings of the 1960s. Others have remarked on the growing use of the growing resources of incumbency. Still others, like Ferejohn, have focused on behavioral change in the larger electoral system, such as the erosion of party identification. In this comment I suggest that while electoral behavior has changed, the change is at least in part a response to changing congressional behavior, which in turn is a reaction to institutional change for which Congress is partly responsible. Specifically, over time congressmen have placed increasing emphasis on district services: more and more they operate as and are perceived as ombudsmen rather than as national policymakers. This behavioral change is an understandable response to an expanding federal role and an increasing involvement of the federal bureaucracy in the lives of ordinary citizens, an institutional change Congress has helped to bring about.

The Transition to Democracy and the Struggles to Take Over the Party

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joy K. Langston
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Electoral Competition ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Transition To Democracy ◽  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
National Party ◽  
Economic Crises ◽  
Party Change

This chapter provides a description of the political and economic crises of the mid-1990s that led to the loss of the PRI’s majority in the Chamber and the presidential defeat in 2000. Even as leaders of the authoritarian regime grappled with downward electoral trends, groups within the party began to battle among themselves over the timing and scope of the transition and of party change. The PRI adapted to the rigors of electoral competition because vote-winning groups within its ranks took over the party and defeated their internal rivals, who were less able to respond to the challenges of the ballot box. Political institutions such as federalism and the two-tiered electoral system helped define winners and losers within the party and gave the winning groups—the party’s governors and the national party officers—ways of controlling resources (candidacies and finances) that did not come into direct conflict.

scholarly journals Social Preferences, Beliefs, and the Dynamics of Free Riding in Public Goods Experiments

2010 ◽  
Vol 100 (1) ◽  
pp. 541-556 ◽  
Author(s):  
Urs Fischbacher ◽  
Simon Gächter
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Real World ◽  
Social Preferences ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Voluntary Contributions ◽  
Conditional Cooperation ◽  
Individual Preferences ◽  
D 83 ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Voluntary Cooperation

One lingering puzzle is why voluntary contributions to public goods decline over time in experimental and real-world settings. We show that the decline of cooperation is driven by individual preferences for imperfect conditional cooperation. Many people's desire to contribute less than others, rather than changing beliefs of what others will contribute over time or people's heterogeneity in preferences makes voluntary cooperation fragile. Universal free riding thus eventually emerges, despite the fact that most people are not selfish. (D12, D 83, H41, Z13)

scholarly journals Electoral competition in the elections of the representative local self-government bodies in Chelyabinsk: before and after the 2014 reform

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 69-82
Author(s):  
Oleg Vydrin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Competition ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Municipal Elections ◽  
Agent Model ◽  
Observation Units ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Principal Agent Model ◽  
The Impact ◽  
First Time ◽  
The City

Introduction. The article examines the dynamics of electoral competition over four electoral cycles from 2005 to 2019 as exemplified by forming representative bodies of local self-government in the city of Chelyabinsk. Particular attention is paid to the impact that the transition of Chelyabinsk to a twotier model of forming local self-government bodies in 2014 had on the electoral competition. The purpose of the paper is to study the dynamics of electoral competition in municipal elections in Chelyabinsk before and after the 2014 reform. Methods. The empirical basis of the study is the database “Electoral competition in the elections of municipal deputies of Chelyabinsk (2005—2019)”, which includes 414 observation units. The analysis of the empirical material is carried out according to the method of G.V. Golosov’s triangle of relative sizes, proposed for classifying party systems and adapted for analyzing elections in single-mandate constituencies. Scientific novelty. The author suggests a methodology for analyzing electoral competition in singlemandate constituencies. For the first time, the phenomenon of “controlled competition” is analyzed on the basis of 4 municipal elections cycles. Results. The analysis makes it possible to speak about fluctuations in electoral competition, its decline in 2009 and 2014 compared to the 2005 elections and increasing by the 2019 elections Conclusions. The “controlled competition” was formed in Chelyabinsk in the period preceding the reform of 2014. The reform introduced a level of local self-government, the effectiveness and necessity of which is not obvious with the existing design of the electoral system. In the course of the reform, the principal-agent model of relations between local self-government bodies and state authorities was finally consolidated. The reform contributed to conserving the “controlled competition”.

Comparing the PRI Experience to Kenya and Taiwan

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joy K. Langston
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Competition ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
National Union ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
The Impact

The final chapter applies the argument based on the Mexican experience to other authoritarian regimes with strong parties that transitioned to democracy: Kenya and Taiwan. Kenya African National Union (KANU) practically disappeared because electoral rules allowed politicians to win elections without strong labels. In Taiwan, the Kuomintang survived and returned to power after two terms out of executive power, in large part because its divisions did not lead to fragmentation and because voters continued to support the label. Thus, the work’s argument: that party leaders must learn to garner electoral victories under democratic circumstances while avoiding the pressures to fragment, holds. Federalism, the mixed-member electoral system, and generous party financing all play a role in determining how electoral competition creates winners and losers within the party organization. These institutions also reduce the impact of the electoral opening on the party’s tendency to fragment.

scholarly journals Electoral System Change, Generations, Competitiveness and Turnout in New Zealand, 1963–2005

2010 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 875-895 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Vowles
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Generational Differences ◽  
Electoral Competition ◽  
National Level ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
System Change ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Lag Effects

In 1996, New Zealand changed its electoral system from single-member plurality (SMP) to a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system. This article addresses the effects on turnout of electoral system change, generational differences and national and district-level competitiveness. Both theory and cross-sectional empirical evidence indicate that turnout should be higher after the change to MMP. Yet turnout has declined. Most of this turns out to be an effect of lag effects generated by longer-term trends of declining competition, and generational experiences. MMP has shifted the main focus of electoral competition from the district to the national level, with consequent changes in turnout distribution. Electoral boundary changes also have negative effects under MMP, and most MMP elections have taken place after an electoral redistribution.

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