Coalition Formation in the Texas Legislature: Issues, Payoffs, and Winning Coalition Size

1975 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald S. Lutz ◽  
Richard W. Murray
Keyword(s):  
Coalition Formation ◽  
Winning Coalition ◽  
Coalition Size

Coalition Formation and Selectorate Theory: An Experiment

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-275
Author(s):  
Andrew W. Bausch
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Laboratory Experiment ◽  
Coalition Formation ◽  
Winning Coalition ◽  
Private Goods ◽  
Target Individual ◽  
Selectorate Theory ◽  
Over Time

This paper uses a laboratory experiment to examine how different rules for re-selecting the leader of a group affects how that leader builds a winning coalition. Leaders play an inter-group game and then distribute winnings from that game within their group before standing for re-selection. The results of the experiment show that leaders of groups with large winning coalition systems rely heavily on distributing winnings through public goods, while leaders of groups with small winning coalition systems are more likely to target specific citizens with private goods. Furthermore, the experiment shows that supporters of small coalition leaders benefit from that support in future rounds by receiving more private goods than citizens that did not support the leader. Meanwhile, citizens that support a large coalition leader do not benefit from this support in future rounds. Therefore, small coalition leaders target individual citizens to maintain a coalition over time in a way not possible in a group with a large winning coalition. Finally, in the experiment, small coalition leaders increased their payoffs over time, suggesting that once power has been consolidated, small coalition leaders narrow their coalition.

Oil Wealth, Winning Coalitions, and Duration of Civil Wars

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 1077-1105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krista Wiegand ◽  
Eric Keels
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Winning Coalition ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Peace Agreements ◽  
Oil Wealth ◽  
New Research ◽  
Coalition Size

New research has begun to underscore the complicated relationship between democratic institutions and the duration of civil wars. Specifically, greater constraints placed on executives often lead to considerably longer civil wars as leaders are limited in how they bargain with dissidents. This presents a puzzle as democracies are often seen as credible negotiators in international disputes. This article suggests that the size of the government’s winning coalition represents a double-edged sword. Larger winning coalitions allow governments to bargain more credibly but also place constraints on what governments can offer since peace agreements may alienate coalition members. Fortunately, future access to postwar oil wealth provides the feasibility for the governments to compensate hard-liners who may lose out on any settlement, making them more likely to allow concessions to rebels. This combined credibility of large winning coalitions and the feasibility provided by oil wealth allows for peace agreements, therefore shortening the duration of civil wars. We test these propositions by examining the conditional relationship between oil wealth and coalition size on the duration of all civil wars between 1950 and 2009.

Universalism in Experimental Committees

1982 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 561-574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary J. Miller ◽  
Joe A. Oppenheimer
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Experimental Design ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Real World ◽  
Coalition Formation ◽  
Winning Coalition ◽  
Committee Decision Making ◽  
Expected Benefits ◽  
High Level ◽  
Rational Choice Theories

Most rational choice theories of committee decision making predict a process of competitive coalition formation leading to a minimum winning coalition. Committee experiments reported to date tend to support these theories. However, both theories and committee experiments are contradicted by the evidence of real-world legislatures making distributive decisions; these decisions are characterized by coalitions of the whole providing virtually all members with a share of distributive benefits. The results in this article help to resolve this contradiction by showing that if the committee experimental design includes a universalistic alternative which provides a high level of expected benefits for committee members, it will be selected. Competitive coalition formation occurs in experimental settings which do not include such an alternative. The results call into question the generality of ordinalist theories of competitive coalition formation.

Drie is meer dan twee:

2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilja van Beest
Keyword(s):  
Coalition Formation ◽  
Power Distribution ◽  
Winning Coalition ◽  
Short Version ◽  
Dyadic Interactions ◽  
Inaugural Address ◽  
Distribution Rules ◽  
As If

Three is more than two: why coalition formation is not easy Three is more than two: why coalition formation is not easy In this short version of my inaugural address I describe how people form coalitions. I argue that people behave as if they are already a member of a coalition without realizing that they could also be excluded from the winning coalition. As a consequence people use specific tactics that have proven their success in dyadic interactions. Using examples of research on resources, power, distribution rules, emotions and deception, I show that the implementation of such tactics yield unexpected and potentially disastrous outcomes in triadic settings.

Decision Costs in Coalition Formation

1968 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 556-563 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles R. Adrian ◽  
Charles Press
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Coalition Formation ◽  
Winning Coalition ◽  
Competent Authority ◽  
The United States ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Coalition Building ◽  
Entire Group ◽  
Information Costs ◽  
Zero Sum

Choices made in coalition formation are costly to participants, complex, and difficult to measure with precision because observable coalitions are multi-person, non-zero-sum games. At least eight decision costs are included in the process. The purpose of this paper is to identify them and to examine their usefulness in explaining coalition formation. Decisions include: (1) information costs, (2) responsibility costs, (3) intergame costs, (4) costs of division of payoffs, (5) dissonance costs (6) inertia costs, (7) time costs, and (8) persuasion costs.Coalition building is an essential aspect of decision making within any political system. Whether one is studying the behavior of a municipal planning commission, a committee or sub-committee of a legislative body, the United Nations Security Council, or any other decision-making institution in which more than one person is involved in reaching a decision, the essential problem is often one of establishing a winning coalition within the entire group membership. A winning coalition is any portion of the group that can decide to do or not to do something that is on the agenda of the group and over which it has competent authority. The requirements of what constitutes a winning coalition are determined by the formal and informal rules of the game. Most commonly, one of the rules is that a winning coalition must consist of one-half the members of the group plus one and this assumption is made for purposes of this paper. The size of the coalition needed is important for individual and coalition strategies, but it is not important conceptually. That is, the problems involved in securing a winning coalition on the United States Supreme Court when only four votes are needed in order to agree to hear a case affects the strategy of the members of the court, but is of no theoretical importance to coalition formation.

Retesting Selectorate Theory: Separating the Effects ofWfrom Other Elements of Democracy

2008 ◽  
Vol 102 (3) ◽  
pp. 393-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAMES D. MORROW ◽  
BRUCE BUENO DE MESQUITA ◽  
RANDOLPH M. SIVERSON ◽  
ALASTAIR SMITH
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Winning Coalition ◽  
Political Survival ◽  
Private Benefits ◽  
Control Variables ◽  
Selectorate Theory ◽  
Coalition Size

Kevin Clarke and Randall Stone (2008) offer a methodological critique of some of our tests of the selectorate theory inThe Logic of Political Survival(Bueno de Mesquita et al.2003). We accept their critique of residualization for control variables in those tests, but reject the contention that the size of the winning coalition does not predict the provision of public goods and private benefits. We present new tests that control for elements of democracy other than W and that do not use residualization. These new tests show that selectorate theory is strongly and robustly supported. Our measure of the size of the winning coalition is in the theoretically predicted direction and is statistically significant for 28 out of 31 different public goods and private benefits. Aspects of democracy not contained in the selectorate theory explain less of the variance than does the theory's core factor, namely, winning coalition size, for 25 of the 31 public goods and private benefits.

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