IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jothpo/v2y1990i1p5-29.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Elite Interaction and Constitution Building in Consociational Democracies

Author

Listed:
  • George Tsebelis

Abstract

This paper uses game theory to provide a common framework to address three questions: (a) Under what conditions is it possible for political elites in segmented societies to pursue accommodating strategies? (b) If elites choose such strategies over long periods of time, why do their followers continue to vote for them? (c) How can political institutions promote accommodating behavior? The essence of the argument is that political elites perceive the political situation as a game of chicken, while the masses may see it as a prisoners' dilemma or deadlock. When elites take into account electoral considerations, a weighting scheme determines the nature of the composite game. This game need not be symmetric with respect to the ranking of payoffs of the different players. The framework explains not only the major independent variable of the consociational democracies literature concerning the accommodating behavior of elites, it explains one of the major criticisms against this literature as well: the phenomenon of elite-intitiated conflict. The same game theoretic framework is used to explain how Belgian institutions work.

Suggested Citation

  • George Tsebelis, 1990. "Elite Interaction and Constitution Building in Consociational Democracies," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 2(1), pages 5-29, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:2:y:1990:i:1:p:5-29
    DOI: 10.1177/0951692890002001001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0951692890002001001
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0951692890002001001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Denzau, Arthur & Riker, William & Shepsle, Kenneth, 1985. "Farquharson and Fenno: Sophisticated Voting and Home Style," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 79(4), pages 1117-1134, December.
    2. Przeworski, Adam & Wallerstein, Michael, 1982. "The Structure of Class Conflict in Democratic Capitalist Societies," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 76(2), pages 215-238, June.
    3. Elster,Jon, 1983. "Explaining Technical Change," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521270724.
    4. Putnam, Robert D., 1988. "Diplomacy and domestic politics: the logic of two-level games," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(3), pages 427-460, July.
    5. Tsebelis, George, 1988. "Nested Games: The Cohesion of French Electoral Coalitions," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(2), pages 145-170, April.
    6. Cameron, David R., 1978. "The Expansion of the Public Economy: A Comparative Analysis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 72(4), pages 1243-1261, December.
    7. Przeworski, Adam & Wallerstein, Michael, 1988. "Structural Dependence of the State on Capital," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(1), pages 11-29, March.
    8. Gibbard, Allan, 1973. "Manipulation of Voting Schemes: A General Result," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(4), pages 587-601, July.
    9. Barry, Brian, 1975. "Review Article: Political Accommodation and Consociational Democracy," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(4), pages 477-505, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fritz W. Scharpf, 1991. "Games Real Actors Could Play: The Challenge of Complexity," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 3(3), pages 277-304, July.
    2. Scharpf, Fritz W., 1990. "Games Real Actors Could Play: The Problem of Connectedness," MPIfG Discussion Paper 90/8, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    3. Kumar, Vikas, 2011. "Negotiating constitutions for political unions," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 58-76, March.
    4. Niamh Hardiman & Saliha Metinsoy, 2017. "How do ideas shape national preferences? The Financial Transaction Tax in Ireland," Open Access publications 10197/9205, Research Repository, University College Dublin.
    5. Benz, Arthur, 1991. "Mehr-Ebenen-Verflechtung: Politische Prozesse in verbundenen Entscheidungsarenen," MPIfG Discussion Paper 91/1, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    6. Zürn, Michael, 1989. "Das CoCom-Regime: zum Erklärungswert rationalistischer Theorien," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 105-149.
    7. Kosack, Stephen & Tobin, Jennifer L., 2015. "Which Countries’ Citizens Are Better Off With Trade?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 95-113.
    8. Kjell Hausken, 1995. "Intra-Level and Inter-Level Interaction," Rationality and Society, , vol. 7(4), pages 465-488, October.
    9. Jongryn Mo, 1994. "The Logic of Two-Level Games with Endogenous Domestic Coalitions," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 38(3), pages 402-422, September.
    10. Bjørn Rasch, 2014. "Insincere voting under the successive procedure," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 158(3), pages 499-511, March.
    11. Fritz W. Scharpf, 1990. "Games Real Actors Could Play," Rationality and Society, , vol. 2(4), pages 471-494, October.
    12. Zürn, Michael, 1989. "Geschäft und Sicherheit: das CoCom-Regime und Theorien über Kooperationen in den internationalen Wirtschaftsbeziehungen," EconStor Research Reports 112665, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    13. William Roberts Clark & Matt Golder & Sona Nadenichek Golder, 2002. "Fiscal Policy and the Democratic Process in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 3(2), pages 205-230, June.
    14. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    15. Jacob Wood & Gohar Feroz Khan, 2015. "International trade negotiation analysis: network and semantic knowledge infrastructure," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 105(1), pages 537-556, October.
    16. Dani Rodrik, 2018. "Populism and the economics of globalization," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 1(1), pages 12-33, June.
    17. Ethan B Kapstein, 2006. "Architects of stability? International cooperation among financial supervisors," BIS Working Papers 199, Bank for International Settlements.
    18. Balint, T. & Lamperti, F. & Mandel, A. & Napoletano, M. & Roventini, A. & Sapio, A., 2017. "Complexity and the Economics of Climate Change: A Survey and a Look Forward," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 252-265.
    19. Erlanson, Albin & Szwagrzak, Karol, 2013. "Strategy-Proof Package Assignment," Working Papers 2013:43, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    20. Kari Irwin Otteburn, 2023. "All in favour? Indian business interests and the India-EU FTA," Asia Europe Journal, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 311-329, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:2:y:1990:i:1:p:5-29. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.