{"title":"Tell me the truth? Dictatorship and the commitment to media freedom","authors":"Greg Chih-Hsin Sheen, Hans H. Tung, Wen-Chin Wu","doi":"10.1177/09516298231208419","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09516298231208419","url":null,"abstract":"The emerging political economy literature on dictatorial media politics rationalizes the cross-country variation in media freedom by dictators’ demand for truthful information. Since a dictator can always punish the media for their truth-telling ex post, concerns of being punished could induce self-censorship and undermine the dictator’s promise to media freedom. We study a formal model that brings the dictator’s commitment problem to the fore, and characterize situations in which the commitment problem is especially severe. Our analysis suggests that neglecting self-censorship would lead to underestimating the amount of missing information in autocracies as well as overestimating the autocrats’ level of tolerance for criticisms and authoritarian responsiveness. Based on the comparative statics, we contend that the variation in media outlets’ quality and penetration can be leveraged to recover missing information due to self-censorship.","PeriodicalId":51606,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136262765","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Law enforcement and political misinformation","authors":"Yohei Yamaguchi, Ken Yahagi","doi":"10.1177/09516298231208412","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09516298231208412","url":null,"abstract":"Why is criminal law enforcement increasingly punitive, despite that the situation has improved for decades? This paper investigates this question from the perspective of political misinformation. To this end, we develop a law enforcement model with political competition and examine how political parties’ campaigns affect voters’ perceptions of crime and equilibrium law enforcement policy. In a political campaign stage, we show that one political party has an incentive to overstate the severity of crime, while the other party has an incentive to correct voters’ beliefs. However, although the two parties attempt to change voters’ beliefs in opposite directions, we find that the total effect of a political campaign is more likely to drive both parties’ policies in a harsh direction.","PeriodicalId":51606,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135730724","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Decentralised information transmission in the shadow of conflict","authors":"Stephane Wolton","doi":"10.1177/09516298231203318","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09516298231203318","url":null,"abstract":"Miscalculations due to lack of information are often seen as one of the main causes of war. Yet, a privately informed country has multiple channels to share information and avoid a costly conflict. I study three ways information can be transmitted – sunk cost signals, audience costs, and military build-up. In a fully decentralised setting, where the uninformed country can perfectly adjust its response to the information it learns, the three channels produce very different outcomes. Sunk cost signals never transmit any information. Information transmission is possible with audience costs when the uninformed country sufficiently values peace. With military build-up, information transmission occurs by accident. It is a by-product of the privately informed country’s attempt to increase its strength. I contrast these findings with the case of a constrained uninformed country that can only choose between a limited number of offers.","PeriodicalId":51606,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135146528","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"(Not) Addressing issues in electoral campaigns","authors":"Salvador Barberà, Anke Gerber","doi":"10.1177/09516298231202424","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09516298231202424","url":null,"abstract":"Two candidates competing for election may raise some issues for debate during the electoral campaign, while avoiding others. We present a model in which the decision to introduce an issue, or to reply to the opponent’s position on one that she raised, may change the further list of topics that end up being discussed. Candidates’ strategic decisions are driven by their appraisal of their expected vote share at the end of the campaign. Real phenomena observed during campaigns, like the convergence of the parties to address the same issues, or else their diverging choice on which ones to treat, or the relevance of issue ownership can be explained within our stark basic model. Most importantly, our analysis is based on a novel concept of equilibrium that avoids the (often arbitrary) use of predetermined protocols. This allows us to endogenously predict not only the list of topics that will be touched upon by each candidate, but also the order in which they will be addressed.","PeriodicalId":51606,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","volume":"54 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134958009","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Collective agency and positive political theory","authors":"Lars J. K. Moen","doi":"10.1177/09516298231203158","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09516298231203158","url":null,"abstract":"Positive political theorists typically deny the possibility of collective agents by understanding aggregation problems to imply that groups are not rational decision-makers. This view contrasts with List and Pettit’s view that such problems actually imply the necessity of accounting for collective agents in explanations of group behaviour. In this paper, I explore these conflicting views and ask whether positive political theorists should alter their individualist analyses of groups like legislatures, political parties, and constituent assemblies. I show how we fail to appreciate the significance of strategic voting and agenda control by treating groups as agents. I, therefore, conclude that positive political theorists should cling to their individualist approach and maintain that groups are not agents.","PeriodicalId":51606,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136314023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Decentralized legislative oversight of bureaucratic policy making","authors":"Janna King, Sean Gailmard, Abby Wood","doi":"10.1177/09516298231202428","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09516298231202428","url":null,"abstract":"Congressional oversight is a potentially potent tool to affect policy making and implementation by executive agencies. However, oversight of any agency is dispersed among several committees across the House and Senate. How does this decentralization affect the strategic incentives for oversight by each committee? And how do the strategic incentives of oversight committees align with the collective interest of Congress as a whole? We develop a formal, spatial model of decentralized oversight to investigate these questions. The model shows that when committees have similar interests in affecting agency policy, committees attempt to free ride on each other, and oversight levels are inefficiently low. But if committees have competing interests in affecting agency policy, they engage in “dueling oversight” with little overall effect, and oversight levels are inefficiently high. Overall, we contend that committee oversight incentives do not generally align with the collective interests of Congress, and the problem cannot be easily solved by structural changes within a single chamber.","PeriodicalId":51606,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136314450","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Zone defense: Why liberal cities build too few homes","authors":"J. Ornstein","doi":"10.1177/09516298231186604","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09516298231186604","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I investigate a puzzling feature of American urban politics: cities with more liberal residents tend to enact more restrictive zoning policies and permit fewer new housing units each year than similar conservative cities. To help explain this puzzle, I develop a formal model in which local governments regulate the size of their population to balance the benefits of agglomeration with the costs of congestion. To defend against congestion externalities imposed by new residents, cities enact zoning policies that undersupply housing relative to the social optimum. In liberal cities, where residents value the benefits of agglomeration the most, this undersupply of housing is the most severe.","PeriodicalId":51606,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","volume":"35 1","pages":"310 - 323"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48096378","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bayesian explanations for persuasion","authors":"A. Little","doi":"10.1177/09516298231185060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09516298231185060","url":null,"abstract":"The central puzzle of persuasion is why a receiver would listen to a sender who they know is trying to change their beliefs or behavior. This article summarizes five approaches to solving this puzzle: (1) some messages are easier to send for those with favorable information (costly signaling), (2) the sender and receiver have common interest, (3) the sender messages are verifiable information, (4) the sender cares about their reputation for competence/honesty, and (5) the sender can commit to a messaging strategy (often called ‘Bayesian Persuasion’). After reviewing these approaches with common notation, I discuss which provide insight into prominent empirical findings on campaigns, partisan media, and lobbying. While models focusing on commitment have rapidly become prominent (if not dominant) in the recent theoretical literature on persuasion in political science and economics, the insights they provide are primarily technical, and are not particularly well-suited to explaining most of these phenomena.","PeriodicalId":51606,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","volume":"35 1","pages":"147 - 181"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43465281","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mowing the grass","authors":"Michael B. Gibilisco","doi":"10.1177/09516298231185113","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09516298231185113","url":null,"abstract":"Mowing the grass is a cyclical pattern in counterterrorism campaigns where governments attack to destroy terrorist capacity, thereby achieving a period of quiet as groups recover. If groups expect their capacity to be destroyed, why build their capabilities in the first place? I analyze an infinite-horizon dynamic game where a group endogenously builds capacity in the face of potential attacks and capacity is an evolving, persistent variable. The model highlights that terrorist groups and governments have incentives to create strategic uncertainty and thus explains attack cycles without punishment strategies, revenge preferences or imperfect/incomplete information. I calibrate the model to time-series data in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict describing rockets fired from Gaza. The results illustrate a peace-making dilemma: altering the government’s incentives will have comparatively minimal effects on long-term conflict dynamics, whereas changing the terrorists’ incentives to acquire capacity would either increase the frequency of high-capacity terrorism or government attacks.","PeriodicalId":51606,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","volume":"35 1","pages":"204 - 231"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44367635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Talking to the enemy: Explaining the emergence of peace talks in interstate war","authors":"O. Mastro, David A. Siegel","doi":"10.1177/09516298231185112","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09516298231185112","url":null,"abstract":"Why are some states open to talking while fighting while others are not? We argue that a state considering opening negotiations is concerned not only with the adverse inference that the opposing state will draw, but also the actions that the opposing state might take in response to that inference. We use a formal model, with assumptions grounded in extensive historical evidence, to highlight one particular response to opening negotiations—the escalation of war efforts—and one particular characteristic of the state opening negotiations—its resilience to escalation. We find that states are willing to open negotiations under two conditions: when their opponents find escalation too costly, and when there is a signal of high resilience that only the highly resilient care to use. To illustrate the dynamics of the second condition, we offer an extended case study detailing North Vietnam’s changing approach to negotiations during the Vietnam War.","PeriodicalId":51606,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Theoretical Politics","volume":"35 1","pages":"182 - 203"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42030844","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}