IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2212.01263.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Who Controls the Agenda Controls the Polity

Author

Listed:
  • S. Nageeb Ali
  • B. Douglas Bernheim
  • Alexander W. Bloedel
  • Silvia Console Battilana

Abstract

This paper models legislative decision-making with an agenda setter who can propose policies sequentially, tailoring each proposal to the status quo that prevails after prior votes. Voters are sophisticated and the agenda setter cannot commit to her future proposals. Nevertheless, the agenda setter obtains her favorite outcome in every equilibrium regardless of the initial default policy. Central to our results is a new condition on preferences, manipulability, that holds in rich policy spaces, including spatial settings and distribution problems. Our results overturn the conventional wisdom that voter sophistication alone constrains an agenda setter's power.

Suggested Citation

  • S. Nageeb Ali & B. Douglas Bernheim & Alexander W. Bloedel & Silvia Console Battilana, 2022. "Who Controls the Agenda Controls the Polity," Papers 2212.01263, arXiv.org.
  • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2212.01263
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2212.01263
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marco Battaglini & Stephen Coate, 2008. "A Dynamic Theory of Public Spending, Taxation, and Debt," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 201-236, March.
    2. Baron, David P. & Ferejohn, John A., 1989. "Bargaining in Legislatures," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(4), pages 1181-1206, December.
    3. Banks, Jeffrey S. & Duggan, John, 2006. "A General Bargaining Model of Legislative Policy-making," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 1(1), pages 49-85, January.
    4. S Nageeb Ali & B Douglas Bernheim & Xiaochen Fan, 2019. "Predictability and Power in Legislative Bargaining," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(2), pages 500-525.
    5. Nicola Persico & Alessandro Lizzeri, 2001. "The Provision of Public Goods under Alternative Electoral Incentives," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 225-239, March.
    6. Christopher R. Berry & Anthony Fowler, 2016. "Cardinals or Clerics? Congressional Committees and the Distribution of Pork," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 60(3), pages 692-708, July.
    7. , & , J., 2014. "Bargaining over an endogenous agenda," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(2), May.
    8. Maskin, Eric & Tirole, Jean, 2019. "Pandering and pork-barrel politics," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 79-93.
    9. Apesteguia, Jose & Ballester, Miguel A. & Masatlioglu, Yusufcan, 2014. "A foundation for strategic agenda voting," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 91-99.
    10. Alexander Fouirnaies, 2018. "When Are Agenda Setters Valuable?," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 62(1), pages 176-191, January.
    11. Kalandrakis, Anastassios, 2004. "A three-player dynamic majoritarian bargaining game," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 116(2), pages 294-322, June.
    12. McKelvey, Richard D. & Niemi, Richard G., 1978. "A multistage game representation of sophisticated voting for binary procedures," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 1-22, June.
    13. Daniel Diermeier & Pohan Fong, 2011. "Legislative Bargaining with Reconsideration," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(2), pages 947-985.
    14. 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. Zapal, Jan, 2020. "Simple Markovian equilibria in dynamic spatial legislative bargaining," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    2. Duggan, John & Kalandrakis, Tasos, 2012. "Dynamic legislative policy making," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(5), pages 1653-1688.
    3. Anesi, Vincent & Duggan, John, 2018. "Existence and indeterminacy of markovian equilibria in dynamic bargaining games," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(2), May.
    4. Nunnari, Salvatore, 2021. "Dynamic legislative bargaining with veto power: Theory and experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 186-230.
    5. T. Renee Bowen & Ying Chen & H?lya Eraslan, 2014. "Mandatory versus Discretionary Spending: The Status Quo Effect," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 2941-2974, October.
    6. Agranov, Marina & Cotton, Christopher & Tergiman, Chloe, 2020. "Persistence of power: Repeated multilateral bargaining with endogenous agenda setting authority," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    7. Dahm, Matthias & Glazer, Amihai, 2015. "A carrot and stick approach to agenda-setting," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 465-480.
    8. de Groot Ruiz, Adrian & Ramer, Roald & Schram, Arthur, 2016. "Formal versus informal legislative bargaining," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 1-17.
    9. Seok-ju Cho, 2014. "Three-party competition in parliamentary democracy with proportional representation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 161(3), pages 407-426, December.
    10. Seok-ju Cho, 2023. "The Dynamics of Parliamentary Bargaining and the Vote of Confidence," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 39, pages 277-314.
    11. Frank, Marco & Stadelmann, David, 2021. "More federal legislators lead to more resources for their constituencies: Evidence from exogenous differences in seat allocations," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 230-243.
    12. Chen, Jidong, 2023. "Sequential agenda setting with strategic and informative voting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).
    13. Hülya Eraslan & Kirill S. Evdokimov & Jan Zápal, 2022. "Dynamic Legislative Bargaining," Springer Books, in: Emin Karagözoğlu & Kyle B. Hyndman (ed.), Bargaining, chapter 0, pages 151-175, Springer.
    14. Matthias Dahm & Amihai Glazer, 2012. "How An Agenda Setter Induces Legislators to Adopt Policies They Oppose," Economics Working Paper from Condorcet Center for political Economy at CREM-CNRS 2012-11-ccr, Condorcet Center for political Economy.
    15. Bowen, Renee & Hwang, Ilwoo & Krasa, Stefan, 2022. "Personal power dynamics in bargaining," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    16. Daniel Diermeier & Georgy Egorov & Konstantin Sonin, 2017. "Political Economy of Redistribution," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 851-870, May.
    17. Jeon, Jee Seon & Hwang, Ilwoo, 2022. "The emergence and persistence of oligarchy: A dynamic model of endogenous political power," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    18. Bowen, T. Renee & Zahran, Zaki, 2012. "On dynamic compromise," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 391-419.
    19. Marina Azzimonti & Laura Karpuska & Gabriel Mihalache, 2020. "Bargaining over Mandatory Spending and Entitlements," Department of Economics Working Papers 20-02, Stony Brook University, Department of Economics.
    20. Tasos Kalandrakis, 2007. "Majority Rule Dynamics with Endogenous Status Quo," Wallis Working Papers WP46, University of Rochester - Wallis Institute of Political Economy.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:2212.01263. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.