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Choosing How Choose: Self-Stable Majority Rules

Author

Listed:
  • Jackson, Matthew O.
  • Barbera, Salvador

Abstract

Constitutional arrangements affect the decisions made by a society. We study how this effect leads to preferences of citizens over constitutions; and ultimately how this has a feedback that determines which constitutions can survive in a given society. Constitutions are stylized here, to consist of a voting rule for ordinary business and possibly different voting rule for making changes to the constitution. We deffine an equilibrium notion for constitutions, called self-stability, whereby under the rules of a self-stable constitution, the society would not vote to change the constitution. We argue that only self-stable constitutions will endure. We prove that self-stable constitutions always exist, but that most constitutions (even very prominent ones) may not be self-stable for some societies. We show that constitutions where the voting rule used to amend the constitution is the same as the voting rule used for ordinary business are dangerously simplistic, and there are (many) societies for which no such constitution is self-stable rule. We conclude with a characterization of the set of self-stable constitutions that use majority rule for ordinary business.
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Suggested Citation

  • Jackson, Matthew O. & Barbera, Salvador, 2002. "Choosing How Choose: Self-Stable Majority Rules," Working Papers 1145, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
    • Handle: RePEc:clt:sswopa:1145
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    2. Lagunoff, Roger, 2009. "Dynamic stability and reform of political institutions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 569-583, November.
    3. Toke S Aidt & Francesco Giovannoni, 2004. "Constitutional Rules," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 04/109, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    4. Roger Lagunoff (Georgetown University), 2005. "Markov Equilibrium in Models of Dynamic Endogenous Political Institutions," Working Papers gueconwpa~05-05-07, Georgetown University, Department of Economics.
    5. Schmitz, Patrick W. & Tröger, Thomas, 2012. "The (sub-)optimality of the majority rule," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 651-665.
    6. Salvador Barbera & Matthew O. Jackson, 2006. "On the Weights of Nations: Assigning Voting Weights in a Heterogeneous Union," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(2), pages 317-339, April.
    7. SLINKO, Arkadii & KORAY, Semih, 2006. "Self-Selective Social Choice Functions," Cahiers de recherche 2006-21, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
    8. Dragan Filipovich & Jaume Sempere, 2008. "Constitutions as self-enforcing redistributive schemes," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 103-129, May.
    9. Roger Lagunoff, 2004. "The Dynamic Reform of Political Institutions," Econometric Society 2004 Latin American Meetings 47, Econometric Society.
    10. Jose Apesteguia & Miguel A. Ballester & Rosa Ferrer, 2006. "On the justice of voting systems," Economics Working Papers 987, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    11. Philippe Aghion & Alberto Alesina & Francesco Trebbi, 2004. "Endogenous Political Institutions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 565-611.
    12. Giovanni Maggi & Massimo Morelli, 2006. "Self-Enforcing Voting in International Organizations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1137-1158, September.
    13. Nicolas Houy, 2006. "La Constitution européenne est 50,13 %-stable. Une note comparative sur la stabilité des Constitutions," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 57(1), pages 123-134.
    14. Ernesto Dal Bo, 2002. "Supermajority Voting Rules: Balancing Commitment and Flexibility," Economics Series Working Papers 132, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    15. Ulrich Erlenmaier & Hans Gersbach, 2001. "Flexible Majority Rules," CESifo Working Paper Series 464, CESifo.
    16. Danny Ben-Shahar & Eyal Sulganik, 2005. "Can Co-Owners Agree to Disagree? A Theoretical Examination of Voting Rules in Co-Ownerships," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 207-223, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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