Journal of Theoretical Politics current issue

Informative Party Labels With Institutional and Electoral Variation

Ashworth, S., de Mesquita, E. B. — 2008-06-16

We study a model of party formation in which the informativeness of party labels and inter-party ideological heterogeneity are endogenously and jointly determined in response to electoral incentives. Parties use screening to increase the cost of affiliation for politicians whose ideal points diverge from the party platform. Because affiliation decisions are endogenous, increased screening decreases ideological heterogeneity, improving the informativeness of the party label. The model allows us to examine how the level of screening responds to changes in both the institutional and electoral environments. We find that screening (and, consequently, the informativeness of the party label and ideological homogeneity) is decreasing in the power of the executive branch, the polarization of party platforms, and the average size of partisan tides.

Electoral Poaching and Party Identification

Kovenock, D., Roberson, B. — 2008-06-16

This article studies electoral competition in a model of redistributive politics with deterministic voting and heterogeneous voter loyalties to political parties. We construct a natural measure of `party strength' based on the sizes and intensities of a party's loyal voter segments and demonstrate how party behavior varies with the two parties' strengths. In equilibrium, parties target or `poach' a strict subset of the opposition party's loyal voters: offering those voters a high expected transfer, while `freezing out' the remainder with a zero transfer. The size of the subset of opposition voters frozen out and, consequently, the level of inequality in utilities generated by a party's equilibrium redistribution schedule is increasing in the opposition party's strength. We also construct a measure of `political polarization' that is increasing in the sum and symmetry of the parties' strengths, and find that the expected ex-post inequality in utilities of the implemented policy is increasing in political polarization.

Applying the Methodology of Mechanism Design To the Choice of Electoral Systems

Sgouraki Kinsey, B., Shvetsova, O. — 2008-06-16

In this article we inquire into the strategic intent behind the design of election laws. Presuming that institutional designers are strategic and rational, we identify the extent of information incompleteness as determining their objectives for rule choice. For different levels of information incompleteness, we assess empirically the validity of explaining actual choices with designers' electoral goals. Using parameter-specific predictions for players' institutional preferences (obtained from a game-theoretic model which assumes electoral success as the design goal) we find that design does not always meet the criterion of elections-aimed rationality (electoral rationalizability). We identify a structural difference between levels of electoral rationalizability in two sets of European electoral reforms, those that accompanied the late 19th—early 20th-century franchise expansion, and those during the post-communist franchise creation in East—Central Europe. For the later sub-sample we rely on a qualitative assessment of electoral rationalizability since extremely high levels of information incompleteness in these cases do not allow us to apply the model reliably. We provide evidence linking the structural difference in electoral rationalizability between the two sub-samples and the sub-sample variation in electoral rationalizability in the late 19th—early 20th century to the quality of information available to the designers.

Bribery and Favoritism in Queuing Models of Rationed Resource Allocation

Batabyal, A. A., Beladi, H. — 2008-06-16

Queuing mechanisms are commonly used in developing countries and in transition economies to allocate goods characterized by excess demand to citizens. Bribery and favoritism frequently accompany the use of such queuing mechanisms. Therefore, we first analyze a queuing model of resource allocation with bribery. Specifically, we determine the expected wait time of a citizen from the time he arrives to queue and the time he obtains the rationed good, the likelihood that a citizen illegally obtains n units of the rationed good, and the expected time a citizen spends being served by the public or private official. Next, we analyze a queuing model of resource allocation with favoritism. Using this model, we ascertain the mean arrival rate of the favored citizen and the likelihood that an ordinary citizen is bumped n times to provide the rationed good immediately to the favored citizen.

Foundations of Legislative Organization and Committee Influence

Kim, J., Rothenberg, L. S. — 2008-06-16

We revisit seemingly settled questions of legislative organization, specifying a more general, realistic, informational model than previously. While theorists, unlike empiricists, have commonly inferred that the floor lacks incentive to allow committee influence via gatekeeping, we find otherwise. By assuming that (1) legislators know more about the status quo than alternative proposals, and (2) committee authority is endogenously determined, we show for numerous realizations of floor-committee preference divergence that vesting committees with agenda-setting power under an open rule is preferred to either an open rule without agenda setting or a closed rule. Net of a closed rule, when committees can receive status quo payoffs from inaction, their sending a message, particularly with monopoly agenda setting, frequently transmits more information than under a pure open rule. As such, many situations exist where the floor will not want to use majoritarian mechanisms, such as discharge petitions or non-germane amendment authority, even if the committee chooses inaction. Although for different reasons than postulated by distributive theorists, gatekeeping and related features such as deference norms are sustainable equilibrium phenomena.