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Forming Voting Blocs and Coalitions as a Prisoner's Dilemma: A Possible Theoretical Explanation for Political Instability

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Author Info
Andrew Gelman (Department of Statistics, Columbia University)
Abstract

Individuals in a committee or election can increase their voting power by forming coalitions. This behavior is shown here to yield a prisoner's dilemma, in which a subset of voters can increase their power, while reducing average voting power for the electorate as a whole. This is an unusual form of the prisoner's dilemma in that cooperation is the selfish act that hurts the larger group. Under a simple model, the privately optimal coalition size is approximately 1.4 times the square root of the number of voters. When voters' preferences are allowed to differ, coalitions form only if voters are approximately politically balanced. We propose a dynamic view of coalitions, in which groups of voters choose of their own free will to form and disband coalitions, in a continuing struggle to maintain their voting power. This is potentially an endogenous mechanism for political instability, even in a world where individuals' (probabilistic) preferences are fixed and known.

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Publisher Info
Article provided by Berkeley Electronic Press in its journal Contributions to Economic Analysis & Policy.

Volume (Year): 2 (2003)
Issue (Month): 1 ()
Pages: 1185-1185
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Related research
Keywords: coalitions cooperation decisive vote elections legislatures prisoner's dilemma voting power

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

  1. Donal G. Saari & Katri K. Sieberg, 1999. "Some Surprising Properties of Power Indices," Discussion Papers 1271, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science. [Downloadable!]
  2. Van Kolpin, 2003. "Voting Power Under Uniform Representation," Economics Bulletin, Economics Bulletin, vol. 4(2), pages 1-5. [Downloadable!]
  3. Katz, Jonathan N. & Gelman, Andrew & King, Gary, 2002. "Empirically Evaluating the Electoral College," Working Papers 1134, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences. [Downloadable!]
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Jon X. Eguia, 2006. "United We Vote," Working Papers 2006.9, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei. [Downloadable!]
  2. Eguia, Jon X., 2006. "Voting blocs, coalitions and parties," Working Papers 1257, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences. [Downloadable!]
  3. Eguia, Jon X., 2004. "United We Vote," Working Papers 1208, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences. [Downloadable!]
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This page was last updated on 2008-11-15.

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