EITM Institutions Week

1. EITM Institutions Week John Aldrich Duke University Arthur Lupia University of Michigan

2. Implications of Multiple Chambers Tsebelis on Veto Players and Policy Stability Diermeier & Myerson on Bicameralism and the Organization of Legislatures Bawn on Choosing the German Electoral Law

3. Tsebelis, Decision Making in Political Systems • M: Compare democratic political systems in terms of policy stability/change. • NH: Regime type (presidentialism vs. parliamentarism) and party systems (two vs. many parties) are the crucial ways by which democratic political systems “matter.”

4. Tsebelis, Decision-Making, cont’d. • P: • Veto players (one whose assent is necessary to change the status quo) are central. • Institutional vetoers (e.g., president, chamber) and party are the crucial veto players. • Change is less likely as: • The number of veto players increase • Congruence of policy preferences among veto players decrease • Cohesion (internal policy agreement) decreases. • Size of win set is key to stability

5. Tsebelis, Decision-Making, cont’d. • C: • As number of players increases, the win set of the status quo does not increase (stability decreases). • As distance among veto players increases along the same line, the win set does not increase. • As size of yolk of veto players increases, the win set increases • N.B.: determination of veto players complex; even so, data from others consistent with derivations.

6. Tsebelis, Veto Players and Law Production in Parliamentary Democracies • Empirical tests of the following hypotheses: • Increase in the number of parties in government reduces the ability to produce significant legislation. • Increase in ideological distance reduces the ability to produce significant legislation. • Number of sig. laws increase with government duration. • Number of sig. laws increases with increasing distance between the current and preceding governments.

7. EITM of Institutional Choice

8. Bawn (1993) • M. Questions about institutional choice. • NH. Institutional choice is a matter of social engineering, it is not political. • P. • Party preferences are defined over policy outcomes. • Parties use information to predict vote shares. • Parties know other parties’ policy preferences. • C. Decisions on German election law in 1949 and 1953 are consistent with Bawn’s political model.

9. 1949. CDU favored FPTP. SPD & small parties favored PR. What assumptions are needed to produce the estimate?

10. 1953. SPD & small parties favored split ballot. CDU did not. Incumbents, SPD, and smaller parties gain.

11. The Logic of Institutional Preferences What would you do?

12. Diermeier and Myerson (1999) • M. What explains variations in committee systems across countries? • NH. Informational and distributional theories are sufficient to answer the question. • P. Legislative chambers compete in a market for legislation. Procedural hurdles as legislative prices. • C. Presidential veto power and bicameral separation encourage chambers to create internal hurdles.

13. Diermeier and Myerson (1999) • The model is not game-theoretic & ~ a theorem. • It builds on Groseclose and Snyder (1996, g-t). • Agent 1 wants a bill to pass. Agent 0 wants it to fail. • Each can pay money to individual legislators conditional on them supporting the bill. • Legislator utility is payment from lobbyists. • Q: When are House members’ expected payoffs increased by raising the House’s hurdle factor?

14. Hurdle Factors • Q[0,1] is the proportion of the legislature whose assent is required for a bill to pass. • Any coalition larger than 1-Q can block the bill. • Agent 1 must promise a sufficient amount to each potential blocking coalition. • The hurdle factor is 1/(1-Q) plus N of veto players. • Dictator in the chamber: 1. • Simple majority rule: 2. • 2/3 supermajority: 3. • Simple majority rule plus one internal veto player: 3.

15. Diermeier and Myerson (1999) • The House’s hurdle factor is s. • The external hurdle factor is t. • V is what Agent 1 can pay. • W is what Agent 0 can pay. • What value of s should the House choose?

16. Diermeier-Myerson main result

17. Bicameralism and Its Consequences for the Internal Organization of Legislatures What would you do?

18. Candidate Entry and CompetitionThe Rationality of Candidate Emergence in Seemingly Uncompetitive Elections

19. A Later Example of EITM John Aldrich and Arthur Lupia

20. Rohde, Progressive Ambition • M: There are no variable “types” of (careerist) ambition, but one expected utility maximizing problem for all. • NH: Ambition for higher office is exogenous. • P: Incumbents are decision makers, not solving a “career ambition game” at equilibrium. Risk-taking is an exogenous, psychological trait. • C: At least for House incumbents, incumbency is attractive due to electoral safety, a Senate seat is more desirable than a Governorship, and the probability of winning the higher office seems most crucial.

21. Banks & Kiewiet • M: Empirical research is insufficiently theoretically grounded to provide insights into candidate competition. • NH: Inexperienced challengers to incumbent Members of Congress make foolish decisions with respect to politics. • P: Game theoretic principles; three person context. “Quality” means “higher probability of defeating incumbent.” • C: Weak challengers run for out-party nomination to oppose an incumbent because that yields a higher probability of winning office than opposing a strong challenger in the primary.

22. Aldrich & Bianco • M: Choice of party affiliation is endogenous to career aspirations. • NH: Party is chosen by “ideology” or beliefs or up-bringing. It is, like party identification in the electorate, all but an “unmoved mover.” • P: Game theoretic premises. Affiliation changes can be due to change in electoral support for a party but may also be due to seeking to avoid contested primaries • C: As support for party declines, party affiliates face a collective action problem.

23. Carson • M: Estimate game theoretic model of candidate emergence with game theoretic-consistent methodology. • NH: Standard, “decision theoretic” probit estimation yields sufficiently accurate estimates. • P: Game theoretical setting, with endogenized disturbence term. QRE equilibrium concept. • C: Incumbent spending significantly reduces the probability of a subsequent challenger entering. Challengers pay attention to the incumbent’s voting record on floor. Both are different in standard, “decision theoretic” probit model.

24. Basic Game (1-m)*(1-b) (1-m)*b m*(1-d) m*d Probabilities in Equilibrium

25. Probit and Strategic Probit Models of Candidate Competition in U.S. House Elections, 1990-2000 Robust standard errors in parentheses. *Significant at p < 0.05

26. Shepsle and Muthoo (2003) • M. Do staggered terms affect Senate dynamics? • NH. Individual-level variations in time before election do not affect Senate bargains. • P. • The Senate contains an “old” player and a “young” player. • Each period, they play an ultimatum game. •  a “what have you done for me lately” heuristic. • C. Under broad conditions, most agenda setting power is allocated to the old player.

27. Shepsle/Muthoo

28. ShepsleMuthoo

29. WHYDFML

30. The Solution Corollary 2. In case i, the old player still gets more power.

31. Agenda Setting Powers in Organizations with Overlapping Generations of Players What would you do? Don’t answer yet.

32. Shepsle, Dickson and VanHouwelling (2003) • M. What are the implications of staggered terms? • NH. Individual-level variations in time before election do not affect Senate bargains. • P • The Senate contains an “old” player and a “young” player. • Each period, they play a “divide-the-dollar” game. •  a “what have you done for me lately” heuristic. • C. Under broad – but different -- conditions, most agenda setting power is allocated to the old player.

33. Baron-Ferejohn format With common knowledge and symmetric information, the first proposal is accepted in equilibrium.

34. WHYDFML There are now three generations of legislators in the game.

35. Initial Conclusions

36. Ultimate Conclusions

37. Bargaining in Legislatures with Overlapping Generations of Politicians What would you do?