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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Grunenberg, Michael; Henning, Christian H. C. A. |
| Abstract: | Farm animal welfare is the main driver of nowadays criticism on German livestock sector. At the same time, non market actors more and more are key actors within animal welfare politics. Hence, we investigate political power of stakeholder organizations in German livestock policy. Our network based framework consists of two components: First, actors influence policy decisions through informational lobbying. Informational lobbying refers to providing expert knowledge in order to influence decision makers' policy beliefs. Second, the exchange of influence resources and power allows interest groups to influence the policy positions of political agents. We combine both measurements with the Banzhaf power index in order to quantify the power of both, political agents as well as interest groups. How this power affects animal welfare policy is illustrated in the field of piglet castration. Results imply that the agricultural sector as well as animal protection groups have the highest influence on beliefs and that state actors distribute most of the power to the agribusiness sector. This structures leads to a positive evaluation of surgical castration under anaesthesia. On the other hand, immunocastration is evaluated as rather useless. This implies that participatory processes decrease the procedures acceptance. |
| Keywords: | communicational lobbying,political support,stakeholder influence,farm animal welfare |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cauapw:wp201901&r=all |
| By: | Franz Dietrich (CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Kai Spiekermann (LSE - London School of Economics and Political Science) |
| Abstract: | Social epistemology studies knowledge in social contexts. Knowledge is 'social' when its holder communicates with or learns from others (Epistemology in groups), or when its holder is a group as a whole, literally or metaphorically (Epistemology of groups). Group knowledge can emerge explicitly, through aggregation procedures like voting, or implicitly, through institutions like deliberation or prediction markets. In the truth-tracking paradigm, group beliefs aim at truth, and group decisions at 'correctness', in virtue of external facts that are empirical or normative, real or constructed, universal or relativistic, etc. Procedures and institutions are evaluated by epistemic performance: Are they truth-conducive? Do groups become 'wiser' than their members? We review several procedures and institutions, discussing epistemic successes and failures. Jury theorems provide formal arguments for epistemic success. Some jury theorems misleadingly conclude that 'huge groups are infallible', an artifact of inappropriate premises. Others have defensible premises, and still conclude that groups outperform individuals, without being infallible. |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-02431971&r=all |
| By: | Alpino, Matteo |
| Abstract: | First-past-the-post elections in single-member districts make legislators more accountable to their district of election compared to proportional electoral systems. Accountability makes politicians more sensitive to voters' preferences when deciding where and how to allocate public expenditure, and also reduces rent extraction. On the other hand, first-past-the-post elections generate overrepresentation of majority parties in parliament, potentially hurting minorities and democratic legitimacy. The mixed system used for Italian Senate elections in 1994, 1996 and 2001 mitigates this tradeoff: 3/4 of the seats are assigned to winners in single-member district elections (majoritarian tier), while the rest to the best runners-up based on party-level vote counts (proportional tier). The system mechanically compensates opposition parties, while keeping all legislators equally accountable to their district. In fact, our empirical analysis based on close elections does not find significative differences in targeting of legislative activity to the district, and in absenteeism between senators of different tiers, contrary to what other studies find for mixed systems with two separate ballot lists. |
| Keywords: | electoral rules,mixed electoral systems,comparative political economy |
| JEL: | D72 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:20002&r=all |
| By: | Martin Mosler; Niklas Potrafke |
| Abstract: | We examine voting behavior of Western allied countries in line with the United States over the period 1949 until 2019. Descriptive statistics show that voting in line with the United States on resolutions in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) was on average 7.2 percentage points lower under Donald Trump than under the preceding United States presidents. The policy shift is especially pronounced for resolutions dealing with the Middle East. The decline in common UNGA voting behavior is significant for the resolution agreement rate and the absolute difference of ideal points. The results suggest that the alienation of Western allies is not driven by ideological distance based on a classical leftwing-rightwing government ideology scale. |
| Keywords: | Donald Trump, voting alignment, UNGA, political alliances |
| JEL: | F51 F53 D72 D78 C23 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ifowps:_320&r=all |
| By: | Wittels, Annabelle Sophie |
| Abstract: | Public participation in rulemaking has long been regarded as an integral part of a functioning democracy. It is however unclear how governments and administrations influence the throughput of public participa- tion, and on a micro-level the decisions of bureaucrats tasked with acting upon such input. In representative democracies the policy positions of elected politicians can divert from public opinion. In addition, public participation initiatives do not commonly attract a fully representative set of society. Thereby demands from the participating public and political principals can diverge. Bureaucrats are then faced with conflicting input. Given bureaucrats’ discretion to manage public participation processes and their outputs, how can we expect them to act? Will they act accord- ing to the wishes of their political principal, will they side with the public or choose to divert. I use a survey experiment with senior bureaucrats in the US and the UK to test this. Further, I assess whether information frames alter such behaviour and whether this varies with the presence of citizen-politician conflict. I find that conflict leads bureaucrats to adopt more of an adviser role, but that information frames have no significant effect. |
| Date: | 2020–01–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:4x8q2&r=all |
| By: | Rostislav Turovsky (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Koroteeva P.P. (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Rusanova K.A. (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This research analyzes the nationalization of Russian party system and presidential candidates from 1996 till 2018 based on the index of nationalization, coefficient of variation, and Euclidean distance, proposing the new method of assessing the aforementioned measurements. The method includes using not the regional level data, but the lower unit of analyses – territorial electoral commissions, which improves the overall precision of the nationalization assessment. Furthermore, the regions themselves are compared to one another in the aspect of their “inner” nationalization |
| Keywords: | Russian federal elections, regional comparisons, electoral support, party system nationalization, Euclidean distance, coefficient of variation, Gini index, territorial electoral commissions. |
| JEL: | D72 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:72/ps/2020&r=all |
| By: | Alexis Poindron (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | We consider a society of agents making an iterated yes/no decision on some issue, where updating is done by mutual influence under a Markovian process. Agents update their opinions at the same time, independently of each other, in an entirely mechanical manner. They can have a favourable or an unfavourable perception of their neighbours. We study the qualitative patterns of this model, which captures several notions, including conformism, anti-conformism, communitarianism and leadership. We discuss under which conditions opinions are stable. Finally, we introduce a notion of entropy that we use to extract information on the society and to predict future opinions. |
| Keywords: | opinion dynamics,convergence,absorbing class,groups,entropy |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-02372486&r=all |
| By: | Hector Galindo-Silva |
| Abstract: | In most of the recent literature on state capacity, the significance of wars in state-building assumes that threats from foreign countries generate common interests among domestic groups, leading to larger investments in state capacity. However, many countries that have suffered external conflicts don't experience increased unity. Instead, they face factional politics that often lead to destructive civil wars. This paper develops a theory of the impact of interstate conflicts on fiscal capacity in which fighting an external threat is not always a common-interest public good, and in which interstate conflicts can lead to civil wars. The theory identifies conditions under which an increased risk of external conflict decreases the chance of civil war, which in turn results in a government with a longer political life and with more incentives to invest in fiscal capacity. These conditions depend on the cohesiveness of institutions, but in a non-trivial and novel way: a higher risk of an external conflict that results in lower political turnover, but that also makes a foreign invasion more likely, contributes to state-building only if institutions are sufficiently incohesive. |
| Date: | 2020–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2001.02322&r=all |
| By: | Harold L. Cole; Dirk Krueger; George J. Mailath; Yena Park |
| Abstract: | We analyze efficient risk-sharing arrangements when coalitions may deviate. Coalitions form to insure against idiosyncratic income risk. Self-enforcing contracts for both the original coalition and any deviating coalition rely on a belief in future cooperation, and we treat the contracting conditions of original and deviating coalitions symmetrically. We show that better belief coordination (higher social capital) tightens incentive constraints since it facilitates both the formation of the original as well as a deviating coalition. As a consequence, the payoff of successfully formed coalitions might be declining in the degree of belief coordination and equilibrium allocations might feature resource burning or utility burning. |
| JEL: | E20 |
| Date: | 2020–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26667&r=all |
| By: | Stephen Clark |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to use the votes cast at the 2019 European elections held in United Kingdom to re-visit the analysis conducted subsequent to its 2016 European Union referendum vote. This exercise provides a staging post on public opinion as the United Kingdom moves to leave the European Union during 2020. A composition data analysis in a seemingly unrelated regression framework is adopted that respects the compositional nature of the vote outcome; each outcome is a share that adds up to 100% and each outcome is related to the alternatives. Contemporary explanatory data for each counting area is sourced from the themes of socio-demographics, employment, life satisfaction and place. The study find that there are still strong and stark divisions in the United Kingdom, defined by age, qualifications, employment and place. The use of a compositional analysis approach produces challenges in regards to the interpretation of these models, but marginal plots are seen to aid the interpretation somewhat. |
| Date: | 2020–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2001.06548&r=all |
| By: | Matthias Wrede |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we analyze several local referendums on land development and land-use regulation in the City of Erlangen (Germany) in the period between 2011 and 2018. To identify the positive influence of the travel distance on approval for the development of land, we employ a two-way fixed-effects model and use spatial instruments. Also, we analyze the heterogeneity of city dwellers’ preferences for the development of residential and commercial areas. In particular, we examine the homeownership and expenditure-crowding-out hypotheses. |
| Keywords: | land development, referendum, local public goods, distance decay, homeownership, expenditure-crowding out |
| JEL: | D72 R52 R58 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8020&r=all |
| By: | Francis Bloch; Shaden Shabayek |
| Abstract: | This paper studies whether a planner who only has information about the network topology can discriminate among agents according to their network position. The planner proposes a simple menu of contracts, one for each location, in order to maximize total welfare, and agents choose among the menu. This mechanism is immune to deviations by single agents, and to deviations by groups of agents of sizes 2, 3 and 4 if side-payments are ruled out. However, if compensations are allowed, groups of agents may have an incentive to jointly deviate from the optimal contract in order to exploit other agents. We identify network topologies for which the optimal contract is group incentive compatible with transfers: undirected networks and regular oriented trees, and network topologies for which the planner must assign uniform quantities: single root and nested neighborhoods directed networks. |
| Date: | 2020–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2001.03122&r=all |