IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/9dv4u_v2.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Weight of Precedent: Parties, Institutions, and Executive Norms

Author

Listed:
  • Goldstein, Daniel A. N.

    (University of Oslo)

  • Schumock, Collin Thomas

Abstract

Political executives often adhere to informal traditions established by their predecessors. Yet, without legal backing, elites have incentives to violate norms for political gain. Under what conditions do constraining executive norms persist and when are they abandoned? We address this question by using an infinite horizon formal model to analyze the maintenance of executive norms. We identify intra-party accountability and variation in patience among actors within the same party as significant for norm maintenance. We also detail how expectations about the expected behavior of out-of-power parties shape the willingness to violate norms while in office. The insights from the model enable us to classify a number of executive norms according to their fragility and to examine the trajectory of one norm in-depth: the two-term tradition of the American presidency. Our findings shed light on how informal institutions regulate executive behavior and advance our understanding of institutional stability and erosion.

Suggested Citation

  • Goldstein, Daniel A. N. & Schumock, Collin Thomas, 2025. "The Weight of Precedent: Parties, Institutions, and Executive Norms," SocArXiv 9dv4u_v2, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:9dv4u_v2
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/9dv4u_v2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/67c1a10f82af3944585572eb/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/9dv4u_v2?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. Axelrod, Robert, 1986. "An Evolutionary Approach to Norms," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(4), pages 1095-1111, December.
    2. 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.
    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. Bärbel M. R. Stadler, 1998. "Abstention Causes Bifurcations in Two-Party Voting Dynamics," Working Papers 98-08-072, Santa Fe Institute.
    2. Goldstein, Daniel A. N. & Schumock, Collin Thomas, 2025. "The Weight of Precedent: Parties, Institutions, and Executive Norms," SocArXiv 9dv4u_v1, Center for Open Science.
    3. Carole Uhlaner, 1989. "“Relational goods” and participation: Incorporating sociability into a theory of rational action," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 62(3), pages 253-285, September.
    4. Christophe Crombez, 2004. "Introduction," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 16(3), pages 227-231, 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. Kaivan Munshi & Mark Rosenzweig, 2008. "The Efficacy of Parochial Politics: Caste, Commitment, and Competence in Indian Local Governments," NBER Working Papers 14335, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Navin Kartik & Francesco Squintani & Katrin Tinn, 2024. "Information Revelation and Pandering in Elections," Papers 2406.17084, arXiv.org.
    8. 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.
    9. Marco Faravelli & Randall Walsh, 2011. "Smooth Politicians And Paternalistic Voters: A Theory Of Large Elections," Levine's Working Paper Archive 786969000000000250, David K. Levine.
    10. Hank C. Jenkins-Smith & Neil J. Mitchell & Kerry G. Herron, 2004. "Foreign and Domestic Policy Belief Structures in the U.S. and British Publics," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 48(3), pages 287-309, June.
    11. H Peyton Young, 2014. "The Evolution of Social Norms," Economics Series Working Papers 726, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    12. Eric Kaufmann & Henry Patterson, 2006. "Intra‐Party Support for the Good Friday Agreement in the Ulster Unionist Party," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 54(3), pages 509-532, October.
    13. Micael Castanheira, 2003. "Why Vote For Losers?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1207-1238, September.
    14. Peter J. Coughlin, 2015. "Probabilistic voting in models of electoral competition," Chapters, in: Jac C. Heckelman & Nicholas R. Miller (ed.), Handbook of Social Choice and Voting, chapter 13, pages 218-234, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    15. Mihir Bhattacharya, 2019. "Constitutionally consistent voting rules over single-peaked domains," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 52(2), pages 225-246, February.
    16. Marc Henry & Ismael Mourifié, 2013. "Euclidean Revealed Preferences: Testing The Spatial Voting Model," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(4), pages 650-666, June.
    17. , & ,, 2006. "Group formation and voter participation," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 1(4), pages 461-487, December.
    18. Dendi Ramdani & Arjen Witteloostuijn, 2012. "The Shareholder–Manager Relationship and Its Impact on the Likelihood of Firm Bribery," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 108(4), pages 495-507, July.
    19. 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.
    20. Alessandro Olper & Johan Swinnen, 2013. "Mass Media and Public Policy: Global Evidence from Agricultural Policies," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 27(3), pages 413-436.

    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:osf:socarx:9dv4u_v2. 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: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.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.