POLTSCI 3500 Final

How many players are in the election game?

1. ***Incumbent politician***: politician holding or acting in office of president before the election, whether seeking re-election or not
2. ***Challenger politician***: politician currently against the incumbent politician- working towards gaining the hold in office
3. ***Voter:*** individuals who will vote upon whether the incumbent or challenger will hold the office

What is a level of quality in a politician and how can we describe it?

High and low quality politicians. Each politician may be high or low quality, and quality reflects the politicians management skills, knowledge of good public policy or ability of the politicians advisors and subordinates. Only politicians know their quality.

What is the probability of a high quality politician?

High quality with the probability *P*

What is the probability of a low quality politician?

Low quality with a probability *1-p*

What is the sequence of the election game?

1. ***Term 1:*** the incumbent chooses a level of effort (or *e1*), which determines the probability of a good outcome
2. ***Election***: voter observes policy and chooses whether to retain or replace the incumbent
3. ***Term 2:*** The incumbent (or the challenger if the incumbent was replaced) chooses a level of effort (or *e2*), which results in a policy outcome

What do voters want from the election game?

Voters want a good outcome! They prefer the politician that is most likely to deliver said good outcome.

What do politicians want from the election game?

The politician, incumbent or challenger, wants to be in office. Every period they are in office, they get *B* or rewards for being in office.

High quality politicians vs low quality politicians with payoffs of winning

1. ***High quality politicians:*** they will get a good outcome regardless of effort
2. ***Low quality politicians***: they will pay *e2* for effort to gain a good outcomes

How do we look forward and reason back with the election game?

1. In term 2, how much effort will the politician exert?
2. Will the voter retain or replace the incumbent?
3. In term 1, how much effort will the politician exert?

Term #2 in the election game

There are no more elections, so either politician has no incentive to exert effort. High quality politicians will produce a good outcome while low quality politicians will produce a bad outcome.

When should the voter replace or retain an incumbent politician?

The voter should compare two probabilities:


1. Probability that the incumbent is high quality
2. Probability the challenger is high quality (*p* by assumption)

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The voter should replace the incumbent if the outcome is bad, and keep the incumbent if the outcome is good

How does the incumbent choose her effort in term 1?

If the incumbent is high quality, she will always het the good outcome so there is no effort needed.

If the incumbent is low quality, she will need to maximize expected utility. (Max e1B - e2/1 Therefore, the effort exerted e1=B/2)

What are the rewards of office?

As B increases, low quality candidates exert more effort in period 1.

Term limits in the election game

Behavior of the politician determines on whether the politician can stand for office. Evidence states the term limited politicians are more corrupt than those with no term limit.

How do elections create accountability between voters and politicians?

Elections incentivize politicians to except costly effort and screen (or weed out) bad politicians.

How do we estimate the effect of the different mechanism?

We can compare first term governors with and without a term limit as well as first term governors with a term limit to second term governors with a term limit.

What if voters have distorted information about policy outcomes?

Voters will always observe the bad outcome, but sometimes they misinterpret the good outcome. This reflects the noisy way in which information travels through media, rival candidates, etc.

good outcome probability

π > 1/2

Bad outcome probability

1 − π

What happens when we include π in the outcome model?

Nothing changes for the second term (no politician exerts effort- *e2* = 0. At election time, the voter still believes that the incumbent is more likely to be high quality after good outcome or incumbent is low quality after bad outcome.

Incentive effects in first term

High quality incumbent does not exert effort, but low quality incumbent is reelected with the probability *πe1*

How does the low quality incumbent maximize a new expected utility?

maxe1 πe1B − e(2/1)

the solution: e(∗/1) = πB/2

How does the inclusion of π < 1 (information distortion) affect effort compared to the baseline model?

The inclusion of π < 1 (information distortion) decreases effort. Larger values of π increase electoral incentive to exert effort.

Media coverage with voters in election games

Voters use the media to gain information.


1. Media can highlight successes and failures of incumbent politicians (make π larger)
2. With media coverage, incumbents are more motivated to be responsive to voters

What do lawmakers in congressional districts with better media tend to do?

1. Participate in more committee hearings
2. Vote as individuals (not in lockstep with their party)
3. Secure more federal funding for their district

What information do challengers produce for the incumbent?

1. Challengers have obvious incentives to points out failures of the incumbent policies (make π larger)
2. The threat of a challenger should motivate incumbents to be more responsive to voters.

Pandering in the election game

Consider two policies: A and B. Voters are uninformed about the incumbent quality and the best policy. Voters believe A in the best policy but the incumbent knows B is the best policy. The incumbent may choose A to get reelected regardless, so voters would believe the incumbent is high quality.

What is the Hotelling model?

If there are two political parties-A and B, voters will align along a policy space. Firms do not exercise variations in product characteristics; firms compete and price their products in only one dimension, geographic location.

What does Downs add to Hotelling’s model?

Downs adds distributions of voter ideologies (normal, bimodal, etc.) as well as allowing voters to abstain from voting if they would like.

What is an assumption for a normal distribution of voters?

There are lots of moderates and few extremists. If there was a line graph, the model would appear to look like a hill with the highest being in the middle and the two ends to be the lowest.

What is strategic abstention?

If parties are close, extremist voters are nearly indifferent- which makes abstention more credible. The threat of abstention should polarize parties.

How does revolution occur?

Under a polarized system, government policy jumps from one extreme to another. This creates a highly unstable situation where there are too few moderate voters. No centrist party will form.

What is the assumption with class based preferences?

Numerical preponderance will occur on the lower class (typically left side) with a small number of elites (typically right side). Elites will often have an incentive to limit suffrage.

What are the two popular systems?

***Plurality rule***: Winner takes all

***Proportional representation***: PR

In general, PR systems tend to have many parties and plurality tend to have two parties.

Multiple parties under the plurality rule

Under plurality rule, parties have an incentive to merge in order to win as smaller parties typically do not win. The same incentive does not exist in PR systems give that parties are so large and can represent their own freedoms with being drowned out.

How do we know the location of lawmakers on the spatial line?

We can use votes in congress (roll call votes), lawmakers who often vote together are closer while lawmakers who rarely vote together are further apart.

How many dimensions are there of political conflict?

The spatial model is one- dimensional, but the ideal points can be estimated over many dimensions.

What is polarization?

The distance between the average ideal point of each party. it can be measured in the house and in the senate along with over time. It is driven by the congressional data.

What are the causes of polarization?

1. changes to the external environment of congress (shifts in social, economic, electoral environments reduce the incentive for bipartisanship)
2. changes to the internal environment (changes in the formal and informal institutions of congress have evolved in ways that exacerbate partisan conflict)

it is likely a mix of both

How does polarization affect the mass public?

It can pull parties apart (if extremist voters can credibly threaten abstention).

What are the two effects of voting?

1. vote can be instrumental because it changes the outcome
2. vote can be “voice” - it influences the margin of victory but not the outcome

How powerful is the Vice President in the US Senate?

the VP can only vote when there is a tie. the VP is pivotal at the 50-50 vote.

What is the change that your vote is pivotal?

It depends on the number of people voting. your vote affects the outcome only when it creates or breaks a tie.

What does rational choice imply about voting?

1. voters probably do not vote due to a desire to influence the election outcome
2. in pairwise contests, you always want to vote sincerely, if you vote at all, as there is no incentive to vote strategically

When there are two alternative should you vote strategically or sincerely?

Strategically. vote for the candidate most likely to give you the outcome you want in the general election.

What are the paradoxical properties with majority rule?

1. Condorcet paradox (collective preferences can be cyclic, even if the preferences of individual voters are not cyclic)
2. if you can control the agenda, you can manipulate outcomes

Can majority rule voting make voters worse off?

Yes, the outcome is highly sensitive to the voting procedure

What are the theoretical upside to polarization?

1. Polarization creates meaningful policy differences to the voters
2. Centrists, undifferentiated parties do not represent the diversity of interests of contemporary American society

What happens under a polarized system?

1. Government policy jumps from one extreme to another
2. .Polarized parties prevent compromise, the type required by democratic politics in heterogeneous societies

What can we assume will happen if we have strong parties and strong party leaders?

1. if parties can discipline their members perfectly, then policy making becomes “the interaction of parties”
2. a polarization party median can then overpower the influence of he median voter in the whole legislature

Polarization in a parliamentary system

Polarization presents little problem for legislative productivity

Polarization in the presidential system

There is a decline in legislative productivity, and decline worsens with super majoritarian obstacles.


1. i.e the filibuster if the filibuster pivot in part of the majority party
2. consider pivotal politics model and the size of gridlock interval

Relation of legislative productivity and gridlock interval

Evidence suggests that legislative productivity declines as the gridlock interval increases

How does polarization affect changing economic and demographic circumstances?

Polarization makes it difficult for public policy to adjust to changing economic and demographic circumstances.

Willingness in brinkmanship and polarization

Increase in polarization creates incentives to use extreme measures to achieve policy goals. There is a less willingness to compromise and more willingness to use severe tactics to extract concessions from opponents.

What are the three alternative institutions?

1. ***The status quo***: jury determines innocent or guilty; if guilty judge determines the punishment
2. ***The Roman system***: start with a serious punishment and worked down the list
3. ***Mandatory sentencing***: each crime has a predetermined sentence

What are the rules for most US elections?

1. ***Single-member district***: an election were only one politician represents a District
2. ***Plurality rule:*** an election where the candidate with the most votes wins

Who are the elites in strategic voting?

Judges and legislators

Who are the elites in the mass public for strategic voting?

Elites have to be more strategic, they have to have more at stake in voting decisions, and they have to have more information about the game they are playing

Single member plurality rule should leave to buy partisan at least at the local level – why?

1. ***Strategic voting:*** innocence, citizens do not wanna waste their vote. This requires voting for a less preferred candidate who is stronger or more likely to win
2. ***Strategic entry:*** politicians or parties should withdraw if they believe their efforts and resources will be wasted

The plurality rules system

1. ***General election:*** most states allocate electoral votes to plurality winner
2. ***Primary:*** most states allocate delegates to plurality winner

What is the problem with the plurality rule system?

It fails to accurately represent voter preferences due to strategic voting, and give us citizens two few political options due to strategic non-entry

What is the solution to the plurality rule system

***Ranked voting:*** voters rank candidate for most to least preferred, the winner is the candidate that beats each opponent in a head to head contest

What are the benefits of majority rule?

1. It may reduce polarization
2. Majority rule man rich public debate. It encourages consideration of a larger group of potential candidates.

How can majority rule be implemented?

1. Primary: the parties decide the electoral rule for primary elections
2. Electoral college: individual states could pass laws to change the electoral college system from plurality rule to majority rule

What is the caveat in majority rule?

In the electoral college, if one state moved unilaterally, they may throw the election to a non-viable third-party candidate