IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/pseptp/hal-01680728.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Democracy for Polarized Committees: The Tale of Blotto's Lieutenants

Author

Listed:
  • Alessandra Casella

    (CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research)

  • Jean-François Laslier

    (PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Antonin Macé

    (GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

In polarized committees, majority voting disenfranchises the minority. Allowing voters to spend freely a fixed budget of votes over multiple issues restores some minority power. However, it also creates a complex strategic scenario: a hide-and-seek game between majority and minority voters that corresponds to a decentralized version of the Colonel Blotto game. We offer theoretical results and bring the game to the laboratory. The minority wins as frequently as theory predicts, despite subjects deviating from equilibrium strategies. Because subjects understand the logic of the game — minority voters must concentrate votes unpredictably — the exact choices are of secondary importance, a result that vouches for the robustness of the voting rule to strategic mistakes.

Suggested Citation

  • Alessandra Casella & Jean-François Laslier & Antonin Macé, 2017. "Democracy for Polarized Committees: The Tale of Blotto's Lieutenants," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) hal-01680728, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:pseptp:hal-01680728
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2017.10.009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Subhasish Chowdhury & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2013. "An experimental investigation of Colonel Blotto games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 52(3), pages 833-861, April.
    2. Yukio Koriyama & Jean-François Laslier & Antonin Macé & Rafael Treibich, 2013. "Optimal Apportionment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(3), pages 584-608.
    3. Casella, Alessandra & Gelman, Andrew & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2006. "An experimental study of storable votes," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 123-154, October.
    4. Alessandra Casella & Thomas Palfrey & Raymond Riezman, 2013. "Minorities and Storable Votes," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Raymond Riezman (ed.), International Trade Agreements and Political Economy, chapter 15, pages 247-282, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Ben Greiner, 2015. "Subject pool recruitment procedures: organizing experiments with ORSEE," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 114-125, July.
    6. Klaus Abbink & Jordi Brandts & Benedikt Herrmann & Henrik Orzen, 2010. "Intergroup Conflict and Intra-group Punishment in an Experimental Contest Game," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 420-447, March.
    7. Qiang Fu & Jingfeng Lu & Yue Pan, 2015. "Team Contests with Multiple Pairwise Battles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(7), pages 2120-2140, July.
    8. Jean-François Laslier & Karine Straeten, 2008. "A live experiment on approval voting," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 11(1), pages 97-105, March.
    9. Benn Eifert & Edward Miguel & Daniel N. Posner, 2010. "Political Competition and Ethnic Identification in Africa," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(2), pages 494-510, April.
    10. Rafael Hortala-Vallve, 2012. "Qualitative voting," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 24(4), pages 526-554, October.
    11. Dan Kovenock & Brian Roberson, 2012. "Coalitional Colonel Blotto Games with Application to the Economics of Alliances," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 14(4), pages 653-676, August.
    12. Sergiu Hart, 2008. "Discrete Colonel Blotto and General Lotto games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 36(3), pages 441-460, March.
    13. Jens GroЯer & Thorsten Giertz, 2014. "Pork barrel politics, voter turnout, and inequality: An experimental study," Working Paper Series in Economics 70, University of Cologne, Department of Economics.
    14. Roman M. Sheremeta, 2018. "Behavior In Group Contests: A Review Of Experimental Research," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 683-704, July.
    15. Cason, Timothy N. & Sheremeta, Roman M. & Zhang, Jingjing, 2012. "Communication and efficiency in competitive coordination games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 26-43.
    16. Emmanuel Dechenaux & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2015. "A survey of experimental research on contests, all-pay auctions and tournaments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 609-669, December.
    17. Arad, Ayala & Rubinstein, Ariel, 2012. "Multi-dimensional iterative reasoning in action: The case of the Colonel Blotto game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 571-585.
    18. Yosef Rinott & Marco Scarsini & Yaming Yu, 2012. "A Colonel Blotto Gladiator Game," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 37(4), pages 574-590, November.
    19. Rafael Hortala-Vallve & Aniol Llorente-Saguer, 2012. "Pure strategy Nash equilibria in non-zero sum colonel Blotto games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 41(2), pages 331-343, May.
    20. Casella, Alessandra, 2005. "Storable votes," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 391-419, May.
    21. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    22. Laslier, Jean-François, 2012. "Why not proportional?," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 90-93.
    23. Brian Roberson, 2006. "The Colonel Blotto game," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 29(1), pages 1-24, September.
    24. Casella, Alessandra, 2012. "Storable Votes: Protecting the Minority Voice," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195309089.
    25. Arad Ayala, 2012. "The Tennis Coach Problem: A Game-Theoretic and Experimental Study," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-43, April.
    26. Rae, Douglas W., 1969. "Decision-Rules and Individual Values in Constitutional Choice," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(1), pages 40-56, March.
    27. Marta Reynal-Querol, 2002. "Ethnicity, Political Systems, and Civil Wars," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 46(1), pages 29-54, February.
    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. Daniel J. Smith, 2020. "Turn-taking in office," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 205-226, June.
    2. Alessandra Casella & Antonin Macé, 2021. "Does Vote Trading Improve Welfare?," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 13(1), pages 57-86, August.
    3. Fehrler, Sebastian & Schneider, Maik T., 2021. "Buying supermajorities in the lab," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 113-154.
    4. Caroline Thomas, 2018. "N-dimensional Blotto game with heterogeneous battlefield values," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(3), pages 509-544, May.
    5. Hans Gersbach, 2022. "New Forms of Democracy," CESifo Working Paper Series 10134, CESifo.

    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. Dan Kovenock & Brian Roberson & Roman M. Sheremeta, 2019. "The attack and defense of weakest-link networks," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 179(3), pages 175-194, June.
    2. Arad, Ayala & Penczynski, Stefan P., 2024. "Multi-dimensional reasoning in competitive resource allocation games: Evidence from intra-team communication," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 355-377.
    3. Emmanuel Dechenaux & Dan Kovenock & Roman Sheremeta, 2015. "A survey of experimental research on contests, all-pay auctions and tournaments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 609-669, December.
    4. Shakun D. Mago & Roman M. Sheremeta, 2017. "Multi‐battle Contests: An Experimental Study," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 84(2), pages 407-425, October.
    5. Subhasish M Chowdhury & Dan Kovenock & David Rojo Arjona & Nathaniel T Wilcox, 2021. "Focality and Asymmetry in Multi-Battle Contests," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(636), pages 1593-1619.
    6. Kimbrough, Erik O. & Laughren, Kevin & Sheremeta, Roman, 2020. "War and conflict in economics: Theories, applications, and recent trends," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 998-1013.
    7. Rafael Hortala-Vallve & Aniol Llorente-Saguer & Rosemarie Nagel, 2013. "The role of information in different bargaining protocols," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 16(1), pages 88-113, March.
    8. Shakun D. Mago & Roman M. Sheremeta, 2019. "New Hampshire Effect: behavior in sequential and simultaneous multi-battle contests," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(2), pages 325-349, June.
    9. Pintér, Ágnes & Veszteg, Róbert F., 2010. "Minority vs. majority: An experimental study of standardized bids," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 36-50, March.
    10. Deck, Cary & Hao, Li & Porter, David, 2015. "Do prediction markets aid defenders in a weak-link contest?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 248-258.
    11. Avrahami, Judith & Kareev, Yaakov & Todd, Peter M. & Silverman, Boaz, 2014. "Allocation of resources in asymmetric competitions: How do the weak maintain a chance of winning?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 161-174.
    12. Duffy, John & Matros, Alexander, 2017. "Stochastic asymmetric Blotto games: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 88-105.
    13. Maria Montero & Alex Possajennikov & Martin Sefton & Theodore Turocy, 2013. "Majoritarian Contests with Asymmetric Battlefields: An Experiment," Discussion Papers 2013-12, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    14. Chowdhury, Subhasish M. & Jeon, Joo Young & Ramalingam, Abhijit, 2016. "Identity and group conflict," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 107-121.
    15. Kölle, Felix, 2020. "Governance and Group Conflict," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224515, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    16. Zeynep B. Irfanoglu & Shakun D. Mago & Roman M. Sheremeta, 2014. "The New Hampshire Effect: Behavior in Sequential and Simultaneous Election Contests," Working Papers 14-15, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    17. Fehrler, Sebastian & Schneider, Maik T., 2021. "Buying supermajorities in the lab," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 113-154.
    18. Maria Montero & Alex Possajennikov & Martin Sefton & Theodore Turocy, 2016. "Majoritarian Blotto contests with asymmetric battlefields: an experiment on apex games," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 61(1), pages 55-89, January.
    19. Huang, Lingbo & Murad, Zahra, 2021. "Fighting alone versus fighting for a team: An experiment on multiple pairwise contests," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 616-631.
    20. Kölle, Felix, 2022. "Governance and competition," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Storable Votes; Polarization; Colonel Blotto; Tyranny of the majority; Committees; Voting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior

    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:hal:pseptp:hal-01680728. 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: Caroline Bauer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.