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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Antoinette Baujard (Université Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne, CNRS, Université Lumière Lyon 2, emlyon business school, GATE, 42023 Saint-Etienne, France); Herrade Igersheim (CNRS, BETA and University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France); Jean-François Laslier (Paris School of Economics, Paris, France) |
| Abstract: | This module presents a variety of studies on voting. They tackle different subjects: participation, Condorcet cycles, strategic voting, electoral campaigns, the voter’s behaviour and psychology. They use different methods that can be labelled ‘experimental’ and all of them are more or less direct tests of models and theories. The module is therefore an introduction, by examples, to various experimental methods in use in political science. The presentation in three sections goes by increasing complexity of the experiments themselves or of their analysis, starting with ‘classroom’ experiments that can be organized very simply and used for pedagogical purposes. |
| Keywords: | Voting, participation, strategic voting, voting behaviors, voters psychology, experiments |
| JEL: | C9 D71 D72 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gat:wpaper:2412 |
| By: | Laurent Bouton; Garance Genicot; Micael Castanheira De Moura; Allison Stashko |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the manipulation of electoral maps by political parties, commonly referred to as gerrymandering. At the core of our analysis is the recognition that not all inhabitants of a district vote. This is important for gerrymandering as districts must have the same population size, but only voters matter for electoral outcomes. We propose a model of gerrymandering that allows for heterogeneity in voter turnout across individuals. This model reveals a new strategy for the gerrymanderers: the pattern is to pack-crack-pack along the turnout dimension. Specifically, parties benefit from packing low-turnout supporters and high-turnout opponents, while creating cracked districts that combine moderate-to-high-turnout supporters with lower-turnout opponents. These findings yield testable empirical implications about the relationship between partisan support, turnout rates, and electoral maps. Using a novel empirical strategy based on comparing maps proposed by Democrats and Republicans during the 2020 U.S. redistricting cycle, we test these predictions and find supporting evidence. |
| Keywords: | Redistricting, Gerrymandering, Electoral Maps, Turnout |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eca:wpaper:2013/378612 |
| By: | Ntounias, Theodoros; Schneider, Christina J; Thomson, Robert |
| Abstract: | Promissory representation is the idea that a significant part of representation consists of parties making promises to voters during election campaigns and keeping those promises if they hold enough power to do so after elections. In countries that are highly exposed to globalization, governing parties face significant challenges to fulfilling the promises they made to voters. At the same time, voters punish governing parties that fail to keep their campaign promises. This presents parties with the dilemma that while voters expect them to make ambitious promises during election campaigns, their capacity to deliver on those promises is undermined by the constraints of globalization. In response to this dilemma, parties rely on strategic ambiguity to avoid retrospective sanctioning by voters in future elections. Ambiguous campaign statements are reconcilable with a broad range of subsequent government policies and are therefore unlikely to be perceived as broken promises by voters. We analyze the use and effects of strategic ambiguity in a mixed-methods design consisting of a survey experiment and an observational study of 293 election platforms by 44 parties in six countries between 1970-2019. The findings shed new light on the widespread use of ambiguity in contemporary politics with important implications for democratic representation in a globalized world. |
| Keywords: | Social and Behavioral Sciences, elections, political campaigns, democracy, language, globalization |
| Date: | 2024–10–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:globco:qt0050h951 |
| By: | Luiz Bines (PUC-Rio); Juliano Assunção (PUC-Rio); Ricardo Dahis (Monash University) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the effects of "Red Alerts", siren warnings of rocket threats, on voting behavior in Israel, focusing on the Likud party during the 2013 and 2015 elections. Using a novel dataset on Red Alert timing and location, we apply a difference-in-differences approach to compare voting patterns in areas newly exposed to Gaza's rocket range in 2014. Our analysis shows that Red Alerts on the days immediately before the election boosted Likud’s vote share by 2.5 p.p., or 15% of the average, while earlier alerts had no significant effect, highlighting the impact of threat salience on electoral outcomes. This research advances our understanding of how security threats influence political behavior. |
| Keywords: | terrorism, salience |
| JEL: | F5 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajr:sodwps:2024-04 |
| By: | Lukáš Linek; Michael Škvròák; Michal Šoltés; Vítìzslav Titl |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces a new Czech Political Candidate Dataset (CPCD), which compiles comprehensive data on all candidates who have run in any municipal, regional, national, and/or European Parliament election in the Czech Republic since 1993. For each candidate, the CPCD includes their first name, last name, age, gender, place of residence, university degree, party membership, party affiliation, ballot position, and election results for candidates and for parties. We matched candidates over various elections by using algorithms that rely on their personal information. We add information on political donations made to political parties. We source donation information from the Czech Political Donation Dataset (CPDD), our other newly built dataset, in which we compile records of individual donations to 12 leading political parties from official records for the period from 2017 to 2023. CPDD is publicly available along with the CPCD. |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cer:papers:wp790 |
| By: | Ying Chen (University of Nottingham Ningbo China); Tom Lane (Newcastle University); Stuart McDonald (University of Nottingham Ningbo China) |
| Abstract: | Using a laboratory experiment, we study the evolution of economic networks in the context of fragmented social identity. We create societies in which members can initiate and delete links to others, and then earn payoffs from a public goods game played within their network. We manipulate whether the society initially consists of segregated or integrated identity groups, and vary whether societal mobility is high or low. Results show in-group favouritism in network formation. The effects of original network structure are long-lasting, with initially segregated societies permanently exhibiting more homophilic networks than initially integrated ones. Moreover, allowing greater social mobility results in networks becoming less rather than more integrated. This occurs in part because eviction from networks is based on out-group hostility when societal mobility is high, and on punishing free riders when mobility across groups is low. |
| Keywords: | social identity; social network; in-group bias; homophily; laboratory experiments |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notcdx:2024-07 |
| By: | Daron Acemoglu; Cevat Giray Aksoy; Ceren Baysan; Carlos Molina; Gamze Zeki |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates whether enduring authoritarian regimes are in part rooted in the population’s misperceptions about their social and economic costs—as opposed to a general preference for authoritarianism. We explore this question using online and field experiments in the context of Türkiye’s May 2023 presidential and parliamentary elections. We confirm that voters, especially those supporting the incumbent authoritarian government systematically underestimate the extent to which democracy and media freedom have been eroded in Türkiye and their usefulness in dealing with natural disasters and corruption (two salient issues in Türkiye). We find that providing (accurate) information about the state and implications of democracy and media freedom have significant effects on beliefs and increase the likelihood of voting for the opposition by about 3.7 percentage points (6.2 percent) in the online experiment. In the field experiment, we estimate similarly-sized impacts on the ballot-box level vote share—with the information treatment leading to a 2.4 percentage point (4.4 percent) increase in the opposition’s vote share. Interestingly, both in the field and online, the results are driven not by further mobilizing opposition supporters, but by influencing those likely to vote for the governing coalition and those holding more misperceived beliefs about democracy and media freedom in Türkiye. The evidence suggests that at least part of the support for authoritarian regimes may be coming from misperceptions about their institutions and policies, and may be more malleable than typically presumed. |
| JEL: | P16 |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33018 |
| By: | Paola Conconi; Florin Cucu; Federico Gallina; Mattia Nordotto |
| Abstract: | The European Union (EU) has long been accused of suffering from a "democratic deficit". The European Parliament (EP), the only EU institution directly elected by citizens, is seen as having limited powers. Moreover, its members (MEPs) are often portrayed as unresponsive to the interests of their constituents due to the second-order nature of European elections: instead of being shaped by EU policies, they are driven by domestic politics. In this paper, we provide evidence against these Eurosceptic arguments using data on a key policy choice made by MEPs: the approval of free trade agreements. First, we show that MEPs are responsive to the trade policy interests of their electorate, a result that is robust to controlling for a rich set of controls, fixed effects, and employing an instrumental variable strategy. Second, we carry out counterfactual exercises demonstrating that the EP's power to reject trade deals can help explain why only agreements with broad political support reach the floor. Finally, against the idea that European elections are driven solely by domestic politics, we find that the degree of congruence between MEPs' trade votes and their electorate's interests affects their re-election chances. |
| Keywords: | EU democratic deficit, European Parliament, roll-call votes, trade agreements |
| Date: | 2024–10–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp2041 |
| By: | Sinha, Pankaj; verma, Kaushal; Biswas, Sumana; Tyagi, Shashank; Gogia, Shaily; Singh, Aakhyat; Kumar, Amit |
| Abstract: | Forecasting the vote share for the upcoming US presidential elections involves multiple pivotal economic and non-economic factors. Critical macroeconomic forces such as the rate of economic growth, tax burden, inflation, and unemployment significantly influence the votes gained or lost by the incumbent. However, these are not the only determinants of presidential elections. The study also considers various non-economic factors that directly impact voting behaviour and can enhance prediction accuracy. These non-economic factors include scandals under the incumbent president, existing crime rates, law enforcement, June Gallup ratings reflecting the sitting president's approval, the average Gallup ratings over their term, and the results of the mid-term elections. Additionally, new non-economic factors such as illegal immigration and illegal aliens apprehended can significantly influence the outcome of the upcoming US presidential elections. To study the combined effects of economic and non-economic factors, data from each election cycle is used in an empirical model to predict the popular vote share percentage for the Democratic Party in the 2024 elections. The findings suggest that a longer tenure in power, June Gallup ratings, average Gallup ratings, scandal ratings, and economic growth rate significantly impact the popular vote share of the incumbent party candidate. The final empirical model predicts that Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party candidate, will receive a popular vote share of 48.60% ± 0.1% in the 2024 Presidential Elections of the United States. |
| Keywords: | Linear Regression, Forecasting, Election, Microeconomic |
| JEL: | C1 C15 C40 C5 C6 H8 |
| Date: | 2024–10–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:122319 |
| By: | Pesaran, M. H.; Song, H. |
| Abstract: | This document is a follow up to the paper by Ahmed and Pesaran (2020, AP) and reports state-level forecasts for the 2024 US presidential election. It updates the 3, 107 county level data used by AP and uses the same machine learning techniques as before to select the variables used in forecasting voter turnout and the Republican vote shares by states for 2024. The models forecast the non-swing states correctly but give mixed results for the swing states (Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia). Our forecasts for the swing states do not make use of any polling data but confirm the very close nature of the 2024 election, much closer than APÂ’s predictions for 2020. The forecasts are too close to call. |
| Keywords: | Voter Turnout, Popular and Electoral College Votes, Simultaneity and Recursive Identification, High Dimensional Forecasting Models, Lasso, OCMT |
| JEL: | C53 C55 D72 |
| Date: | 2024–10–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:2464 |