IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fau/aucocz/au2009_305.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Electoral Systems and Government Stability: A Simulation of 2006 Italian Policy Space

Author

Abstract

This paper tracks a path from electoral results to government formation, in order to assess whether the characteristics of the party system put forward by the spatial theory of voting may influence, and how, the relationship between electoral system and government stability. In this regard we perform a simulation concerning the 2006 Italian general election, by computing the parliamentary seats that parties would get in an election through various electoral systems, starting from given electors’ votes. We then introduce two well-known game theoretical models that explain stability and instability of coalition governments. We draw some counterfactual deductions about what would have occurred to Italian government stability if other electoral systems had been in use. The results of our simulation suggest that the stability consequences of technical changes in an electoral system are influenced by the spatial features of the party system.

Suggested Citation

  • Luigi Curini & Paolo Martelli, 2009. "Electoral Systems and Government Stability: A Simulation of 2006 Italian Policy Space," Czech Economic Review, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, vol. 3(3), pages 305-322, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:fau:aucocz:au2009_305
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://auco.cuni.cz/mag/article/download/id/75/type/attachment
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Schofield, Norman & Grofman, Bernard & Feld, Scott L., 1988. "The Core and the Stability of Group Choice in Spatial Voting Games," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(1), pages 195-211, March.
    2. Enelow,James M. & Hinich,Melvin J., 1984. "The Spatial Theory of Voting," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521275156, September.
    3. Marie-Edith Bissey & Mauro Carini & Guido Ortona, 2004. "ALEX3: a Simulation Program to Compare Electoral Systems," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 7(3), pages 1-3.
    4. Stefania Ottone & Ferrucio Ponzano & Roberto Ricciuti, 2009. "Simulating Voting Rule Reforms for the Italian Parliament: An Economic Perspective," Czech Economic Review, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, vol. 3(3), pages 292-304, October.
    5. McKelvey, Richard D., 1976. "Intransitivities in multidimensional voting models and some implications for agenda control," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 472-482, June.
    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. A. J. McGann, 2004. "The Tyranny of the Supermajority," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 16(1), pages 53-77, January.
    2. Cesar Garcia Perez de Leon, 2012. "Does implicit voting matter? Coalitional bargaining in the EU legislative process," European Union Politics, , vol. 13(4), pages 513-534, December.
    3. Thomas Bräuninger, 2007. "Stability in Spatial Voting Games with Restricted Preference Maximizing," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 19(2), pages 173-191, April.
    4. Tovey, Craig A., 2010. "The instability of instability of centered distributions," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 53-73, January.
    5. Dirk Junge & Thomas König, 2007. "What's Wrong With Eu Spatial Analysis?," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 19(4), pages 465-487, October.
    6. Gyung-Ho Jeong, 2017. "The supermajority core of the US Senate and the failure to join the League of Nations," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 173(3), pages 325-343, December.
    7. Ivo Bischoff, 2005. "Party competition in a heterogeneous electorate: The role of dominant-issue voters," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 122(1), pages 221-243, January.
    8. Moser, Peter, 1999. "The impact of legislative institutions on public policy: a survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 1-33, March.
    9. Hanne Marthe Narud, 1996. "Electoral Competition and Coalition Bargaining in Multiparty Systems," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 8(4), pages 499-525, October.
    10. Mathew McCubbins & Thomas Schwartz, 1985. "The politics of flatland," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 46(1), pages 45-60, January.
    11. Dennis Mueller, 2012. "Gordon Tullock and Public Choice," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 152(1), pages 47-60, July.
    12. Bernard Grofman & Thomas Brunell & Scott Feld, 2012. "Towards a theory of bicameralism: the neglected contributions of the calculus of consent," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 152(1), pages 147-161, July.
    13. Dhillon, Amrita, 2003. "Political Parties and Coalition Formation," Economic Research Papers 269591, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    14. Campos, Ed & Pradhan, Sanjay, 1996. "Budgetary institutions and expenditure outcomes : binding governments to fiscal performance," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1646, The World Bank.
    15. Ganghof, Steffen & Manow, Philip, 2005. "Mechanismen der Politik: Strategische Interaktion im deutschen Regierungssystem," Schriften aus dem Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung Köln, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, volume 54, number 54.
    16. Ponzano, Ferruccio, 2004. "The allocation of the income tax among different levels of government: a theoretical solution," POLIS Working Papers 40, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.
    17. Thomas König & Bernd Luig, 2012. "Party ideology and legislative agendas: Estimating contextual policy positions for the study of EU decision-making," European Union Politics, , vol. 13(4), pages 604-625, December.
    18. Thomas H. Hammond & Christopher K. Butler, 2003. "Some Complex Answers to the Simple Question ‘Do Institutions Matter?’," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 15(2), pages 145-200, April.
    19. Larry Samuelson, 1987. "A test of the revealed-preference phenomenon in congressional elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 141-169, January.
    20. Edward Wesep, 2012. "Defensive Politics," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 151(3), pages 425-444, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Electoral systems; spatial theory of voting; simulation; government stability; Italian party system;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • C15 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Statistical Simulation Methods: General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:fau:aucocz:au2009_305. 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: Lenka Stastna (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/icunicz.html .

    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.