IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jothpo/v11y1999i4p435-470.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Collusion, Competition and Democracy

Author

Listed:
  • Stefano Bartolini

Abstract

This article deals with the concept and the problem of political competition and collusion with particular reference to democratic accountability and responsiveness. It starts with a discussion of the essence of competitive interaction with respect to other types of conflictual, negotiative or cooperative interactions. The relationship between competition and various conceptions of democracy is then discussed, identifying four independent dimensions: `contestability' (conditions of entry); `availability' (demand's elasticity); `decidability' (the political offer); and `vulnerability' (incumbents' safety of tenure). The paper concludes by discussing the relationships between competitive and collusive pushes in all aspects of political interactions, and criticizing the formal optimized models that fail to see the impossibility of parallel maximization of all dimensions of competition. Competition rests on a vast set of non-competitive preconditions and needs constraining-sustaining conditions, as it is unlikely to be effective in a world of rational, maximizing, selfish independent actors as much as it is in a world of communal closed groups.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefano Bartolini, 1999. "Collusion, Competition and Democracy," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 11(4), pages 435-470, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:11:y:1999:i:4:p:435-470
    DOI: 10.1177/0951692899011004001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0951692899011004001
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0951692899011004001?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. Randall G. Holcombe, 1991. "Barriers to Entry and Political Competition," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 3(2), pages 231-240, April.
    2. Enelow,James M. & Hinich,Melvin J., 1984. "The Spatial Theory of Voting," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521275156.
    3. George Stigler, 1972. "Economic competition and political competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 91-106, September.
    4. McKelvey, Richard D. & Ordeshook, Peter C., 1985. "Elections with limited information: A fulfilled expectations model using contemporaneous poll and endorsement data as information sources," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 55-85, June.
    5. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65, pages 135-135.
    6. G. J. Stigler, 1972. "Perfect Competition, Historically Contemplated," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Charles K. Rowley (ed.), Readings in Industrial Economics, chapter 7, pages 105-130, Palgrave Macmillan.
    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. Magnette, Paul & Papadopoulos, Yannis, 2008. "On the politicization of the European consociation: A middle way between Hix and Bartolini," European Governance Papers (EUROGOV) 1, CONNEX and EUROGOV networks.

    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. Tanner, Thomas Cole, 1994. "The spatial theory of elections: an analysis of voters' predictive dimensions and recovery of the underlying issue space," ISU General Staff Papers 1994010108000018174, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    2. Melvin J. Hinich & Michael C. Munger, 1992. "A Spatial Theory of Ideology," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 4(1), pages 5-30, January.
    3. Sugato Dasgupta & Kenneth C. Williams, 1995. "Search Behavior Of Asymmetrically Informed Voters: An Experimental Study," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(1), pages 21-41, March.
    4. Scott de Marchi, 1999. "Adaptive Models and Electoral Instability," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 11(3), pages 393-419, July.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Alan E. Wiseman, 2006. "A Theory of Partisan Support and Entry Deterrence in Electoral Competition," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 18(2), pages 123-158, April.
    8. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/eu4vqp9ompqllr09iepsg269m is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Joseph Gershtenson, 2004. "Ideological Centrism and the Electoral Fortunes of U.S. Senate Candidates," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 85(2), pages 497-508, June.
    10. Mikael Gilljam, 1997. "Symposium. The Directional Theory of Issue Voting: I," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 9(1), pages 5-12, January.
    11. Juan Carlos Berganza, 1998. "Relationships Between Politicians and Voters Through Elections: A Review Essay," Working Papers wp1998_9809, CEMFI.
    12. Kirchgassner, Gebhard, 2000. "Probabilistic Voting and Equilibrium: An Impossibility Result," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 103(1-2), pages 35-48, April.
    13. Jo Thori Lind & Dominic Rohner, 2017. "Knowledge is Power: A Theory of Information, Income and Welfare Spending," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 84(336), pages 611-646, October.
    14. Partha Gangopadhyay & Shyam Nath, 2001. "Bargaining, Coalitions and Local Expenditure," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 38(13), pages 2379-2391, December.
    15. Michael McKee, 1988. "Political competition and the Roman Catholic schools: Ontario, Canada," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 57-67, January.
    16. Stefano Bartolini, 2000. "Collusion, Competition and Democracy," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 12(1), pages 33-65, January.
    17. Enriqueta Aragonès & Dimitrios Xefteris, 2017. "Imperfectly Informed Voters And Strategic Extremism," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 58(2), pages 439-471, May.
    18. Hervé Crès & M. Utku Ünver, 2010. "Ideology and Existence of 50%-Majority Equilibria in Multidimensional Spatial Voting Models," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 22(4), pages 431-444, October.
    19. Ladha, Krishna K., 1995. "Information pooling through majority-rule voting: Condorcet's jury theorem with correlated votes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 353-372, May.
    20. Amihai Glazer & Bernard Grofman, 1988. "Limitations of the spatial model," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 161-167, August.
    21. David Austen‐Smith, 1991. "Rational Consumers And Irrational Voters: A Review Essay On Black Hole Tariffs And Endogenous Policy Theory, By Stephen Magee, William Brock And Leslie Young, Cambridge University Press 1989," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(1), pages 73-92, March.

    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:11:y:1999:i:4:p:435-470. 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.