Voting Equilibria Under Proportional Representation (original) (raw)
Related papers
Proportional Representation, Majoritarian Legislatures, and Coalitional Voting
American Journal of Political Science, 2011
Voters in elections under plurality rule face relatively straightforward incentives when it comes to voting. Voters in PR systems face more complex incentives as electoral outcomes don't translate as directly into policy outcomes as in plurality rule elections. A common approach is to assume electoral outcomes translate into policy as a vote-weighted average of all party platforms. Most of the world's legislatures are majoritarian institutions and elections in PR systems are generally followed by a process of coalition formation. I demonstrate that existing results are not robust to the introduction of minimal forms of majoritarianism. Voters' incentive to engage in strategic voting are shown to depend on considerations about the coalitions that may form after the election. In line with the empirical findings in the literature, the voters' equilibrium strategies are shaped by policy balancing and the post-electoral coalition bargaining situation, including considerations about who will be appointed the formateur.
Proportional Representation, Majoritarian Legislatures & Coalitional Voting
American Journal of Political Science, 2011
Voters in elections under plurality rule face relatively straightforward incentives when it comes to voting. Voters in PR systems face more complex incentives as electoral outcomes don't translate as directly into policy outcomes as in plurality rule elections. A common approach is to assume electoral outcomes translate into policy as a vote-weighted average of all party platforms. Most of the world's legislatures are majoritarian institutions and elections in PR systems are generally followed by a process of coalition formation. I demonstrate that existing results are not robust to the introduction of minimal forms of majoritarianism. Voters' incentive to engage in strategic voting are shown to depend on considerations about the coalitions that may form after the election. In line with the empirical findings in the literature, the voters' equilibrium strategies are shaped by policy balancing and the post-electoral coalition bargaining situation, including considerations about who will be appointed the formateur.
Strategic Voting in Proportional Representation Systems
2014
We propose a model of voter decision-making in proportional representation systems: ultra-rational strategic voters construct expectations of coalitions and policy outcomes based on expected seat distributions and vote to maximize their expected utility from the implemented policy. We examine the predictions of our model using data from the Netherlands and successfully predict the voting behavior of significant numbers of voters. Nevertheless, other factors matter more than our strategic prediction. Three main take-aways follow: (1) At least to some extent, voters seem to take complex coalition considerations into account. (2) There is a need for large-scale quantitative studies about voter decision-making in proportional representation systems. (3) Narrowly defined strategic voting might matter less in proportional representation systems than in plurality systems.
Proportional Representation and Strategic Voters
2010
The goal of this paper is to examine the incentives to vote insincerely, other than those created by rounding, faced by voters in the systems of proportional representation (PR). We rigorously investigate two models of voter behaviour. The first model assumes that a voter is primarily interested in the distribution of seats in the post-election parliament (seat maximiser) while the second considers a voter who is concerned with the distribution of power in it (power maximiser). We show that under pure PR seat maximisers do not have any incentives to manipulate, which justifies the Bowler and Lanoue (1992) claim, and that such incentives for seat maximisers appear with the introduction of a threshold.
It is often argued in the electoral reform literature that while proportional representation may distribute seats proportionally to votes, it does not distribute legislative power proportionally. This is often combined with the assertion that small parties under PR have disproprtionate influence on outcomes. This assertion, however, is nearly always supportive with anecdotal evidence (if not simply stated as self-evident). This paper provides a systematic test of this claim. It presents both simulation results, historical data, and a case study of Israel. We find that small parties have disproportionate influence only when the number of parties is very small. As the number of parties climbs above 4, influence tends toward proportionality. Furthermore, large party bias is far more likely than small party bias. Proportional representation elections may produce a surprisingly "majoritarian" political dynamic.
When Moderate Voters Prefer Extreme Parties: Policy Balancingin Parliamentary Elections
American Political Science Review, 2005
This work develops and tests a theory of voter choice in parliamentary elections. I demonstrate that voters are concerned with policy outcomes and hence incorporate the way institutions convert votes to policy into their choices. Since policy is often the result of institutionalized multi-party bargaining and thus votes are watered-down by power-sharing, voters often compensate for this watering-down by supporting parties whose positions differ from (and are often more extreme than) their own views. I use this insight to reinterpret an ongoing debate between Proximity and Directional Theories of voting, showing that voters prefer parties whose positions differ from their own views insofar as these parties pull policy in a desired direction. Utilizing data from four parliamentary democracies that vary in their institutional design, I test my theory and show how institutional context affects voter behavior.
A Median Voter Theorem for Proportional Representation Systems with Firm Preelectoral Coalitions
2010
We define the stable set of a party formation game with farsighted citizen candidates under proportional representation. Voters are sincere, parties are identified with candidate positions and can enter firm preelectoral coalitions. A coalition government is associated with a lottery over the ideal positions of its constituent parties. If preferences are strictly concave, in every outcome in the unique farsighted stable set the candidate representing the median voter wins the election as a singleton.
The effect of ideology on policy outcomes in proportional representation systems
Mathematical Social Sciences, 2011
In this paper we propose a model in which there are ideological and strategic voters who vote under poportional rule. We prove that the behavior of ideological voters matters for the determination of the outcome. We show that a subset of strategic voters partially counteracts the votes of the ideological voters.
Political equilibria with electoral uncertainty
Social Choice and Welfare, 2007
After an election, when party positions and strengths are known, there may be a centrally located large party at the core position. Theory suggests that such a core party is able to form a minority government and control policy. In the absence of a core party, theory suggests that the outcome be a lottery associated with coalition risk. Stochastic models of elections typically indicate that all parties, in equilibrium, will adopt positions at the electoral center. This paper first presents an existence theorem for local Nash equilibrium (LNE) under vote maximization, and then constructs a more general model using the notion of coalition risk. The model allows for the balancing of office and policy motivations. Empirical analyses of elections in the Netherlands and Israel are used as illustrations of the model and of the concept of a structurally stable LNE.
A model of political equilibrium in a representative democracy
Journal of Public Economics, 1993
This paper studies political equilibrium in a two-party representative democracy in which the political parties are policy motivated and voters trade off their policy preferences against their 'party identity'. It is shown that the parties will in general adopt differing policy positions in equilibrium, and that, under certain qualifications, the winning policy will lie between the more popular party's preferred policy and a certain utilitarian optimum. The winning policy will be closer to this utilitarian optimum the less biased the electorate is in terms of 'party identilication'.