{"title":"Valence Politics","authors":"Haldun Evrenk","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469733.013.13","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469733.013.13","url":null,"abstract":"In the context of politics, the term valence refers to bonds between candidates and some desirable qualities in the public’s mind. This chapter provides a review of formal models of spatial political competition when candidates differ in their exogenous valence. Employing simple numerical examples, this chapter discusses the role of several assumptions (on voter preferences, candidate objectives, the timing of the game, etc.) employed in these models in restoring the existence of a divergent pure strategy Nash equilibrium and in determining the equilibrium policies and vote shares. The chapter mostly focuses on models of two-candidate competition, multicandidate competition is discussed only briefly.","PeriodicalId":328044,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Public Choice, Volume 1","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121438119","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Political Choices in One Dimension","authors":"B. Grofman","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469733.013.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469733.013.8","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter focuses on applications of majority rule processes for choice of a single alternative from a set of alternatives that can be regarded as locations in one-dimensional space (a line), where the voters who must choose among these alternatives can themselves be viewed as having a most preferred location on this line. In particular, it considers applications of one-dimensional spatial models in areas such as legislative voting, party competition, and coalition formation. The chapter concentrates on results for the proximity model of voting, where utility for the voter falls off with distance from each voter’s ideal point, but it also briefly considers a threshold model of changes in voter turnout across elections as a function of election importance.","PeriodicalId":328044,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Public Choice, Volume 1","volume":"355 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134457660","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Collective Action","authors":"Jac C. Heckelman","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469733.013.23","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469733.013.23","url":null,"abstract":"The theory of collective action, as outlined by Mancur Olson, is presented. Olson argued that individuals are subject to free-riding behavior, which can be overcome by selective incentives. The larger is the potential group, the greater the hurdles to successful formation. Thus, smaller groups with more narrow interests are more likely to form, leading to an emphasis on policy reform that concentrates benefits to the group while diffusing the costs on greater society. The accumulation of such groups will slow growth, and this sclerotic effect is reversed due to institutional instability. This chapter develops a critical appraisal of the theory and the accumulated evidence in the literature that follows from Olson.","PeriodicalId":328044,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Public Choice, Volume 1","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128713850","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Expressive Voting","authors":"Alan Hamlin, C. Jennings","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469733.013.16","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469733.013.16","url":null,"abstract":"Just as voting occupies a central role in democratic politics, so a rational choice–theoretic account of voting occupies a central role in public choice theory. Such an account must initially address two questions: under what circumstances is it rational for an individual to vote, and in those circumstances, how will a rational individual cast his or her vote? After reviewing the basic logic of expressive choice, this chapter addresses salient theoretical and empirical themes relating to expressive voting. The theoretical section addresses the debate regarding the probability of causal effect when voting, strategic voting, and institutional design. The empirical section discusses expressiveness as related to identity and moral choice, and the extent to which expressive choice can be distinguished from social pressure and illusion.","PeriodicalId":328044,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Public Choice, Volume 1","volume":"417 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124182366","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fairness Concepts","authors":"Christian Klamler","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469733.013.37","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469733.013.37","url":null,"abstract":"Issues of fairness arise in many different situations that involve a certain distribution of resources, an allocation of costs or objects, or any other algorithmic division process. This chapter discusses these issues of fairness. It starts with an introduction to certain general aspects of fairness for the models at stake, dealing especially with the concept of responsibility. In the following sections, the focus lies in particular on some specific fair division settings, such as claims problems, cost sharing, and the division of indivisible items. We introduce various well-known fair division procedures and discuss their normative foundations in terms of widely used axioms in the literature. Several numerical examples are provided.","PeriodicalId":328044,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Public Choice, Volume 1","volume":"71 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115412533","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Logrolling and Coalitions","authors":"A. McGann","doi":"10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780190469733.013.22","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780190469733.013.22","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter discusses logrolling, the process whereby people trade votes or support on different matters to produce a prearranged outcome. Although the term has negative connotations in popular discourse, it is an essential part of the legislative process. Some logrolls are explicit, where legislators come to an agreement to trade votes. However, logrolling also covers many other political phenomena where the vote trading is implicit, such as party platforms and coalition agreements. In fact, from a social choice point of view, logrolling is similar to coalition formation or voting on multiple, interdependent issues. Whether logrolling produces an efficient outcome depends on whether the logroll is “comprehensive,” taking into account all external costs, as opposed to being a series of decentralized vote trades. Political institutions are important in facilitating these broad logrolls and making them stick over time. Such institutions include political parties, committee systems, and coalition agreements.","PeriodicalId":328044,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Public Choice, Volume 1","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115395933","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“The Bureaucracy” as an Interest Group","authors":"Patrick Dunleavy","doi":"10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780190469733.013.28","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780190469733.013.28","url":null,"abstract":"Rational choice theories of bureaucratic interests started simple and have become somewhat more sophisticated over time. Early, “classical” models stressed either budget maximization or rent seeking as dominant motivations and predicted chronically unbalanced or dysfunctional outcomes—respectively, bureaucratic oversupply or radical undersupply (to create artificial scarcity rents). They also assumed a woefully uninformed legislature or ministers. Revisionist models stress more complex pictures. Bureau-shaping theory argues that the diversity of agency structures creates differing motivations—so that some top officials may oversupply (e.g. in defense), while others create queues or overcut budgets (e.g. in welfare areas). Some agencies or nongovernmental organizations achieve particular “market” constructs, where a pooling equilibrium is successfully created, attracting only intrinsically motivated staff to work in a mission-specific organization. Bureaucracies’ use of hierarchy has also been defended in economic terms—for reasons analogous to those maintaining large firms, or as a rational response to delegation issues in “normal” democracies, where delegation is straightforward. In the United States, delegation to bureaucracies is more complex and directly contingent on political factors, in Congress especially.","PeriodicalId":328044,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Public Choice, Volume 1","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130256583","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Public Choice","authors":"D. Mueller","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469733.013.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469733.013.3","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter reviews the early contributions to public choice beginning with what might be called its antecedents. These include the works of the Marquis de Condorcet (1743–1794), Jean-Charles de Borda (1733–1799), Charles L. Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) (1823–1898), Harold Hotelling (1895–1973), Knut Wicksell (1851–1926), and Joseph A. Schumpeter (1883–1950). The chapter dates the modern literature from 1948, starting with the work of Duncan Black (1908–1991). It defines the early modern literature as spanning the twenty-five years after Black’s first contributions (1948–1973). The chapter proceeds by chronicling the contributions of the leading figures in public choice over that period in addition to Black—James M. Buchanan (1919–2013), Kenneth J. Arrow (1921–2017), Kenneth O. May (1915–1977), Anthony Downs (1930–), Gordon Tullock (1922–2014), William Vickrey (1914–1996), William H. Riker (1920–1993), Mancur Olson (1932–1998), James S. Coleman (1926–1995), Amartya K. Sen (1933–), and William A. Niskanen (1933–2011). It offers some final thoughts on the early literature in the closing section.","PeriodicalId":328044,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Public Choice, Volume 1","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125399815","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Public Choice and Happiness","authors":"B. Frey, A. Stutzer","doi":"10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780190469733.013.40","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780190469733.013.40","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter discusses how the analysis of self-reported measures of subjective well-being can contribute to a better understanding of the extent to which public choices serve individuals’ preferences. Research insights will be drawn from the analysis of the well-being consequences of alternative institutional arrangements, the assessment of specific policies, the study of procedural utility, and the testing of theoretical predictions derived from models of the political process. The chapter also adopts a reverse perspective and discusses how the application of insights from public choice analyses can inform and inspire happiness research on issues related to public policy. In particular, happiness indicators provide new and complementary information about the satisfaction of citizens’ preferences, which will strengthen democratic competition. However, the happiness approach also has clear limitations if it is understood as a decision rule for good policy and the interaction between citizens and the government is reduced to monitoring reported happiness.","PeriodicalId":328044,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Public Choice, Volume 1","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125145484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Contested Political Persuasion","authors":"S. Skaperdas, Samarth Vaidya","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469733.013.33","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469733.013.33","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter shows how contest and rent-seeking functions can be thought of as persuasion functions that can be derived in a Bayesian setting. Two contestants (such as lobbyists or politicians) produce evidence for a decision maker (such as an agency head or a voter) who has prior beliefs and possibly other biases and engages in Bayesian updating. The probability of each contestant winning depends on the resources and organization of the contestant, on the biases of the decision maker, and on the truth, as well as other factors. This chapter discusses how this approach can be applied to lobbying government at its three branches (legislative, executive, and judicial, the latter in terms of litigation), political campaigning, general policy formulation and advocacy in the wider media, and ideological struggles.","PeriodicalId":328044,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Public Choice, Volume 1","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129684670","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}