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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Tanguiane, Andranick S. |
| Abstract: | This is the third out four papers on the 2025 German Bundestag elections continuing our analysis of the 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2021 elections. In particular, this paper contributes to the discussion of the imperfection of the German 2023/24 Electoral reform in [Tangian 2025a]. We show that policy representation by the Bundestag could be improved using the alternative Third Vote election method. Under the Third Vote, electors cast no votes for parties by name. The electoral ballot consists of questions on topical policy issues ('General speed limit on motorways?'-Yes/No, 'Germany should increase its defense spending?'-Yes/No, etc.), and the parties answer to these questions before the elections - as required by the Wahl-O-Mat, the German voting advice applications. However, the Third Vote is not concerned with individual advices or individual voting intermediation. The electoral ballots are processed to construct the electorate's policy profile with balances of public opinion on all the issues. Then the matching of the parties' profiles with the electorate's profile is measured using the parties' indices of popularity (average percentage of electors represented on all the issues) and universality (percentage of questions when a majority is represented). These indices of representativeness are used instead of the conventional index 'number of votes received' to define the party quotas in the Bundestag. This method is hypothetically applied to reallocate the 2025 Bundestag seats to the eligible parties, resulting in a considerable gain in the Bundestag representativeness. Finally, we discuss mixed election procedures combining the Third Vote with the conventional voting by party name and analyze possible implications. |
| Keywords: | Representative democracy, elections, theory of voting, proportional representation |
| JEL: | D71 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:kitwps:320439 |
| By: | Oliver Feltham (University of Amsterdam and Tinbergen Institute); Arthur Schram (University of Amsterdam and Tinbergen Institute); Randolph Sloof (University of Amsterdam and Tinbergen Institute) |
| Abstract: | In an election, protest voters signal their discontent with the party they traditionally support in different ways. This paper examines a specific form of protest voting in which voters choose an anti-mainstream party over their true first preference, the mainstream party, as a way to signal discontent with mainstream policies or influence future policy decisions. Protest voters face a trade-off stemming from a coordination problem. Too few protest votes mean that the strength of the protest is insufficient to affect the mainstream’s policies; too many protest votes may result in an anti-mainstream victory, which is a sub-optimal outcome for the protest voter. One way to address this coordination problem is through opinion polls. In this context, polls serve a dual purpose: they provide information about the challenges protest voters face (information channel) and function as a coordination mechanism, allowing voters to adjust their behaviour based on poll results to resolve the coordination problem (coordination channel). We test, experimentally, the extent to which each of these channels increases the likelihood that the protest is successful and find that both channels are significant. |
| Keywords: | protest voting, opinion polls, experiments |
| JEL: | C92 D72 D83 |
| Date: | 2025–02–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20250013 |
| By: | Tanguiane, Andranick S. |
| Abstract: | This is the last out of four papers on the 2025 German federal elections continuing our analysis of the 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2021 Bundestag elections. First, we apply the model from [Tangian 2022b] to construct the 2025 German political spectrum understood as a contiguous party ordering, i.e., such that the neighboring parties have close policy profiles. For this purpose, we consider the parties that took part in the 2025 federal elections, define their policy profiles as 38-dimensional vectors of their Yes/No answers to 38 policy questions from the German voting advice application Wahl-O-Mat ('Support for Ukraine'?-Yes/No, 'General speed limit on motorways?'-Yes/No, etc.), and contiguously order them by means of Principal Component Analysis. The circular party ordering obtained is cut, resulting in a horseshoe-shaped left-right ideological axis with the far-left and far-right ends approaching each other. Among other things, the one-dimensionality of the political spectrum looks as a precondition for the voters' single-peaked preferences that guarantee the election consistency. Second, using similar data from the 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2021 German federal elections, we construct political spectra for these years as well and trace the changes. Since the set of contesting parties varies from one election to another, and the Wahl-O-Mat questions vary as well, we only dispose five party orderings with a relatively small core of 13 parties that participated in all five elections. To locate the five spectra on a common scale, we consider 60 parties that have ever participated in elections and order them basing on five spectra on subsets of 24, 29, 31, 37 and 28 parties, respectively. This is done in terms of collective choice: find a group preference on 60 alternatives given five individual preferences on five incomplete alternative subsets; so we adapt the Condorcet and Borda approaches. Then the five political spectra are stretched onto this unified party ordering by constrained least squares, adjusting the distances between the parties in each spectrum. All of these enable to adequately visualize party reshuffles in the political space. In particular, we see that, among the major German parties, the SPD fluctuates by far the most between left and right. This political inconsistency can deter voters, especially floating voters without a firm self-identification with a particular party, and may explain the SPD's failure in the 2025 elections, when the party received the historical minimum of 16.4% of the votes, having lost 9.3 percent points compared with the 2021 elections. |
| Keywords: | Political spectrum, contiguous party ordering, left-right ideological axis, single-peaked preferences, principal component analysis, group choice with incomplete individual preferences |
| JEL: | D71 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:kitwps:320440 |
| By: | Kitamura, Shuhei; Takahashi, Ryo; Yamada, Katsunori |
| Abstract: | Elections are a primary mechanism through which citizens can hold politicians accountable for misconduct. However, whether voters actually punish corruption at the ballot box remains an open question, as electoral decisions often involve strategic considerations, including beliefs about how others think and behave. To better understand how such strategic considerations operate in this context, we conducted a pre-registered information intervention during a major political corruption scandal in Japan. The treatment provided information about the prevailing social norm—specifically, the perceived social intolerance of the scandal. The treatment increased turnout and support for a challenger, particularly among swing voters who initially believed that others were intolerant of corruption. Among party loyalists with more lenient prior beliefs, the same information backfired, increasing support for the incumbent. The turnout effect among swing voters was sizable—approximately six percentage points—comparable in magnitude to benchmark mobilization interventions involving personalized contact or social pressure. To account for these patterns, we develop a simple model that incorporates mechanisms—notably *moral reinforcement* and *identity reinforcement*—that generate predictions consistent with the observed heterogeneity in responses. By highlighting how perceptions of prevailing norms shape voter behavior in the presence of strategic considerations, this study contributes to a broader understanding of how democratic institutions can remain resilient in the face of political misconduct. |
| Date: | 2025–06–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:296zd_v1 |
| By: | Mostapha Diss (CRESE - Centre de REcherches sur les Stratégies Economiques (UR 3190) - UFC - Université de Franche-Comté - UBFC - Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté [COMUE], AIRESS - Africa Institute for Research in Economics and Social Sciences); Clinton Gubong Gassi (CRESE - Centre de REcherches sur les Stratégies Economiques (UR 3190) - UFC - Université de Franche-Comté - UBFC - Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté [COMUE], department of mathematics University of yaounde 1); Eric Kamwa (BETA - Bureau d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée - AgroParisTech - UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) Mulhouse - Colmar - UL - Université de Lorraine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | We consider a model of multi-winner elections, where each voter expresses a linear preference over a finite set of alternatives. Based on voters' preferences, the primary goal is to select a subset of admissible alternatives, forming what is referred to as a committee. We explore (weakly) separable committee scoring rules, the voting mechanisms that assess each alternative individually using a scoring vector and select the top k alternatives, where k represents the committee's size. Furthermore, we operate under the assumption that alternatives are categorized based on specific attributes. Within each attribute category, there exists a targeted minimum number of alternatives that the selected committee should encompass, emphasizing the necessity for diversity. In this context, we assess the cost associated with imposing such a diversity constraint on the voting process. This assessment is conducted through two methodologies, referred to as the "price of diversity" and the "individual price of diversity". We set the upper bounds for both prices across all (weakly) separable committee scoring rules. Additionally, we show how the maximum price of diver- sity can be used to discriminate between different voting rules in this context. Ultimately, we illustrate that concentrating on the candidates' performance yields a more accurate estimation of the price of diversity compared to a focus on the enforced diversity constraint. |
| Keywords: | Group decisions and negotiations, Voting, Multiwinner elections, Scoring rules, Price of diversity |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04390700 |
| By: | Tanguiane, Andranick S. |
| Abstract: | This is the first of four articles on the 2025 German federal elections, continuing our analysis of the 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2021 elections. We begin with the 2023/24 electoral reform, which aimed to curb the uncontrolled growth of the Bundestag caused by political developments not envisaged in the original election rules. The reform fixes the size of the Bundestag at 630 members and introduces limits to parties' mandates at the level of federal states (Länder). All this makes the proportional allocation of Bundestag seats to parties less accurate and skews the balance between the two concepts implemented in the German mixed-member proportional representation system - the descriptive one (parliament consists of local representatives in order to 'mirror' the society) and the agent one (parliament consists of credible political experts from political parties) - in favor of the agent concept at the expense of the descriptive one. We show that the accuracy of Bundestag seat allocation to parties can be improved by applying modern discrete optimization techniques instead of the currently used historical Sainte-Lague/Webster method. The balance between the two concepts of representation can be restored by replacing the official two-tier distribution of Bundestag seats between federal state party associations with that computed directly in one step. Finally, all apportionment problems can be completely solved by introducing adjustment vote weights. All these devices are illustrated using hypothetical redistributions of Bundestag seats. |
| Keywords: | Representative democracy, elections, theory of voting, proportional representation |
| JEL: | D71 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:kitwps:320437 |
| By: | Ghizlen Ouasbaa (Pompeu Fabra & IEB); Albert Solé-Ollé (Universitat de Barcelona & IEB); Elisabet Viladecans-Marsal (Universitat de Barcelona & IEB & CEPR) |
| Abstract: | We examine the impact of city council members with real estate backgrounds on housing supply in California 1995-2019. Using candidate occupation data and a close-elections regression discontinuity design, we find that electing a developer increases approved housing units by 68% during their term. This effect fades after one term, suggesting developers influence zoning decisions more than long-term policy change. Analysis of votes extracted from council meetings shows they are especially effective in securing discretionary zoning approvals. Importantly, we find no evidence of electoral backlash, suggesting voters are generally supportive of housing expansion led by pro-development candidates. |
| Keywords: | Land-use Policies, Housing Market, Interest Groups |
| JEL: | P00 R31 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ieb:wpaper:doc2025-05 |
| By: | Tanguiane, Andranick S. |
| Abstract: | This is the second out of four papers on the 2025 German federal elections continuing our analysis of the 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2021 Bundestag elections. We estimate the policy representation ability of the 29 parties that participated in the 2025 elections and of the 2025 Bundestag. For this purpose, the parties' Yes/No answers to 38 topical questions are compared with the results of recent public opinion polls. Then the party indices of popularity (the average percentage of the population represented) and universality (frequency in representing a majority) are constructed. Assuming that the Bundestag position on the 38 issues is determined by the Bundestag majority, the Bundestag indices of popularity and universality are estimated as well. The main conclusion is that the representativeness of the parties in the Bundestag and the Bundestag as a whole (before coalition-formation) has significantly decreased since 2021. In particular, the former election winner, the SPD, is now ranked 16 instead of 4 in 2021, having the mean index (popularity + universality)/ 2 = 56.3% instead of 65 % in 2021, and the mean index of the Bundestag is now equal to 48.5% instead of the former 61.1%. As for the currently ruling coalition of the CDU/CSU + SPD, its compatibility of 52.8% is greater than that of the former ruling coalition of the SPD + GRÜNE + FDP1, which was equal to 45% (which resulted in the coalition collapse). The mean representativeness index of the current ruling coalition is however significantly lower (51.5% compared with the former 61%). |
| Keywords: | Policy representation, representative democracy, direct democracy, elections, coalitions |
| JEL: | D71 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:kitwps:320438 |
| By: | Eniro Asemota (University of Graz, Austria); Patrick Mellacher (University of Graz, Austria); Stefania Rossi (University of Graz, Austria) |
| Abstract: | Using municipal data from Austria (n=2115), Italy (n=7894), and Sweden (n=290), we examine how Covid-19 shaped right-wing vote shares in the 2024 European elections versus 2019. We model the 2024-2019 vote-share differences using spatial regressions controlling for socio-demographic characteristics in three contrasting cases. Austria's Freedom Party (FPO) and the Italy's Lega and Fratelli d'Italia (FdI) opposed a large number of pandemic measures as being excessive. In contrast, Sweden Democrats opposed their government's lax response, demanding stricter measures. In Austria and Italy, right-wing vote-share gains are negatively correlated with vaccination rates and positively with post-pandemic unemployment. Furthermore, high excess mortality predicts poorer Italian right-wing performance, with mixed effects in Austria. In contrast, Swedish right-wing support is negatively linked to unemployment, with no significant impact of vaccination rates or excess mortality. These results suggest that the electoral rewards for opposing government crisis policies depend on the national context and party strategy. |
| Keywords: | right-wing populism, corona skepticism, strategic party competition |
| JEL: | D72 H12 I18 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grz:wpaper:2025-10 |