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Coalition Governance. The Beginning. Austen-Smith and Banks, 1988.
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Coalition Governance The Beginning
Austen-Smith and Banks, 1988 • M: “Predictions of electoral behavior in a multiparty setting should be a function of voters’ beliefs about how parties will perform following an election. Similarly, party behavior in a legislature should be of function of electoral promises and rewards.” • NH: Voters in multiparty PR do not condition their voting choices on party performance after the election. • P: • Multistage game • Terminal node reached by party bargaining • Party influence proportional to legislative seats won in election • Three parties with no entry • Voters backwards induct and vote on preferences induced by bargaining game solution • Policy outcome is weighted average of party positions in resulting coalition • The equilibrium concept is sequential equilibrium • Voters may cast strategic votes
Austen-Smith and Banks, 1988 • C: • If no party wins a majority of seats in the election, the equilibrium outcome will consist of a coalition between the largest and smallest party • Party positions in the election are two parties symmetrically about the median with third party at the median • Median party gets fewest votes (but is always in the winning coalition) • Pre-voting expectation is the median, but the outcome is a coalition between one off median and one median party, hence with a policy outcome off median
Grofman, 1985 • M: Downs has been misinterpreted as having a model per chapter rather than a unified theory • NH: Voters accept policy promises, in spatial models, rather than calculate what parties might actually accomplish in office. • P: • Unidimensional spatial model in all respects save one • Parties can only change the status quo part way toward what they (say they) would like to achieve
Grofman, 1985 • C: Voters may support the farther removed party, for that reason.