'Strategic' Behavior in a Strategy-Proof Environment

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avinatan Hassidim ◽  
Assaf Romm ◽  
Ran I. Shorrer
Keyword(s):  
Strategic Behavior ◽  
Strategy Proof

The Problem of Strategic Behavior under Approval Voting

1984 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 952-958 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard G. Niemi
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Strategic Behavior ◽  
Condorcet Winner ◽  
Approval Voting ◽  
Election Reform ◽  
Strategy Proof

Approval voting is being promoted as “the election reform of the 20th century” (Brams, 1980, p. 105), and indeed if voters' preferences are dichotomous, approval voting has some remarkable qualities: it is uniquely strategy-proof, a candidate wins if and only if he is a Condorcet winner, and voters have simple strategies that are at once sincere and sophisticated. However, all of these results depend on the existence of dichotomous preferences, a contrived and empirically unlikely assumption. Here I show that these virtues of approval voting are replaced by some rather undesirable features under more plausible assumptions. More fundamentally, rather than promoting “honest” behavior, as is sometimes implied, the existence of multiple sincere strategies almost begs voters to behave strategically. I also examine sophisticated approval voting and show that in the general case it need not pick a Condorcet alternative. Ironically, there is a condition under which Condorcet winners may always be picked, but for this to occur, voters sometimes have to vote for candidates of whom they disapprove.

The Internet is a Semicommons

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Grimmelmann
Keyword(s):  
Open Field ◽  
Online Communities ◽  
Strategic Behavior ◽  
Private Property ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Field System ◽  
Technical Features ◽  
Dynamic Interplay ◽  
Enormous Success

78 Fordham Law Review 2799 (2010)The Internet is a semicommons. Private property in servers and network links coexists with a shared communications platform. This distinctive combination both explains the Internet's enormous success and illustrates some of its recurring problems.Building on Henry Smith's theory of the semicommons in the medieval open-field system, this essay explains how the dynamic interplay between private and common uses on the Internet enables it to facilitate worldwide sharing and collaboration without collapsing under the strain of misuse. It shows that key technical features of the Internet, such as its layering of protocols and the Web's division into distinct "sites," respond to the characteristic threats of strategic behavior in a semicommons. An extended case study of the Usenet distributed messaging system shows that not all semicommons on the Internet succeed; the continued success of the Internet depends on our ability to create strong online communities that can manage and defend the infrastructure on which they rely. Private and common both have essential roles to play in that task, a lesson recognized in David Post's and Jonathan Zittrain's recent books on the Internet.

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