IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v44y1984i3p443-451.html

Electoral equilibrium in double member districts

Author

Listed:
  • Gary Cox

Abstract

The median-voter result, and the issue of stability in electoral competition generally, have been examined from a number of different perspectives. Out of all these examinations, however, only a few focus on institutional variables. This essay demonstrates that the median-voter result is robust under a significant institutional change that entails altering the basic assumption of single-member districts. After developing a model of electoral competition in a two-member, first-two-past-the-post district, I show that, if there are three candidates, the set of Nash equilibria is the set of strategy triples (x 1 , x 2 , x 3 ), with x 1 =x 2 =x 3 =x*, and such that x* lies between the quantiles of order 1/3 and 2/3. If there are four candidates, I show that a unique Nash equilibrium exists with all candidates adopting a position at the medianvoter's ideal point. Copyright Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 1984

Suggested Citation

  • Gary Cox, 1984. "Electoral equilibrium in double member districts," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 443-451, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:44:y:1984:i:3:p:443-451
    DOI: 10.1007/BF00119692
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/BF00119692
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/BF00119692?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shepsle, Kenneth A., 1972. "The Strategy of Ambiguity: Uncertainty and Electoral Competition," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 66(2), pages 555-568, June.
    2. Melvin Hinich & Peter Ordeshook, 1969. "Abstentions and equilibrium in the electoral process," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 81-106, September.
    3. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    4. John Aldrich, 1983. "A spatial model with party activists: implications for electoral dynamics," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 63-100, January.
    5. Gordon Tullock, 1981. "Why so much stability," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 189-204, January.
    6. Sawyer, Jack & MacRae, Duncan, 1962. "Game Theory and Cumulative Voting in Illinois: 1902–1954," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 56(4), pages 936-946, December.
    7. Jeremy Mitchell, 1976. "Electoral strategy under open voting: Evidence from England 1832–1880," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 17-35, December.
    8. Klain, Maurice, 1955. "A New Look at the Constituencies: The Need for a Recount and a Reappraisal," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(4), pages 1105-1119, December.
    9. McKelvey, Richard D, 1979. "General Conditions for Global Intransitivities in Formal Voting Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(5), pages 1085-1112, September.
    10. Fishburn, Peter C., 1978. "Axioms for approval voting: Direct proof," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 180-185, October.
    11. François Petry, 1982. "Vote-maximizing versus utility-maximizing candidates: Comparing dynamic models of Bi-Party competition," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 16(6), pages 507-526, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. Andrew Beath & Fotini Christia & Georgy Egorov & Ruben Enikolopov, 2014. "Electoral Rules and the Quality of Politicians: Theory and Evidence from a Field Experiment in Afghanistan," NBER Working Papers 20082, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Dean Lacy & Emerson M. S. Niou, 1998. "Elections in Double-Member Districts with Nonseparable Voter Preferences," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 10(1), pages 89-110, January.
    4. Andrew Beath & Fotini Christia & Georgy Egorov & Ruben Enikolopov, 2016. "Electoral Rules and Political Selection: Theory and Evidence from a Field Experiment in Afghanistan," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(3), pages 932-968.
    5. Brian Beach & Daniel B. Jones, 2017. "Gridlock: Ethnic Diversity in Government and the Provision of Public Goods," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 112-136, February.

    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. Randall Holcombe, 1986. "Non-optimal unanimous agreement," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 229-244, January.
    2. Tovey, Craig A., 2010. "The instability of instability of centered distributions," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 53-73, January.
    3. Elinor Ostrom, 1986. "An agenda for the study of institutions," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 3-25, January.
    4. Claudio Bonilla, 2004. "A Model of Political Competition in the Underlying Space of Ideology," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 121(1), pages 51-67, October.
    5. Larry Samuelson, 1987. "A test of the revealed-preference phenomenon in congressional elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 141-169, January.
    6. Mark M. Berger & Michael C. Munger & Richard F. Potthoff, 2000. "The Downsian Model Predicts Divergence," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 12(2), pages 228-240, April.
    7. Burkhard Schipper & Hee Yeul Woo, 2012. "Political Awareness and Microtargeting of Voters in Electoral Competition," Working Papers 124, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    8. Kenneth Shepsle & Barry Weingast, 1981. "Structure-induced equilibrium and legislative choice," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 503-519, January.
    9. Kenneth Shepsle, 1986. "The positive theory of legislative institutions: an enrichment of social choice and spatial models," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 135-178, January.
    10. Kovenock, Dan & Roberson, Brian, 2011. "Non-partisan ‘get-out-the-vote’ efforts and policy outcomes," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 728-739.
    11. Jelle Koedam, 2021. "Avoidance, ambiguity, alternation: Position blurring strategies in multidimensional party competition," European Union Politics, , vol. 22(4), pages 655-675, December.
    12. C.Y. Cyrus Chu & Meng-Yu Liang, 2022. "Why Are All Communist Countries Dictatorial?," IEAS Working Paper : academic research 22-A002, Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
    13. Hortala-Vallve, Rafael & Esteve-Volart, Berta, 2011. "Voter turnout and electoral competition in a multidimensional policy space," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 376-384, June.
    14. Daniel E. Ingberman & Robert P. Inman, 1987. "The Political Economy of Fiscal Policy," NBER Working Papers 2405, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Matthew D. Mitchell, 2019. "Uncontestable favoritism," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 181(1), pages 167-190, October.
    16. Kroszner, Randall S. & Stratmann, Thomas, 1999. "Does Political Ambiguity Pay? Corporate Campaign contributions and the Rewards to Legislator Reputation," Working Papers 155, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    17. Amihai Glazer & Bernard Grofman, 1988. "Limitations of the spatial model," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 161-167, August.
    18. James Buchanan & Yong Yoon, 2006. "All voting is strategic," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 129(1), pages 159-167, October.
    19. Yasushi Asako, 2015. "Campaign promises as an imperfect signal: How does an extreme candidate win against a moderate candidate?," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 27(4), pages 613-649, October.
    20. Thomas Bräuninger, 2007. "Stability in Spatial Voting Games with Restricted Preference Maximizing," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 19(2), pages 173-191, April.

    More about this item

    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:kap:pubcho:v:44:y:1984:i:3:p:443-451. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.