[(Making Votes Count: Strategic Coordination in the World's Electoral Systems )] [Author: Gary W. Cox] [Nov-2002]

Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions

by Gary W. Cox

Las elecciones generales constituyen el núcleo de la democracia representativa. De ahí que la comprensión de las leyes y prácticas que rigen estas elecciones resulte esencial para entender la democracia moderna. En este libro, Gary W. Cox muestra que las leyes electorales plantean una serie de problemas de coordinación que los actores políticos deben resolver. Por ejemplo, bajo la norma del pluralismo, no todos los candidatos izquierdistas a la presidencia pueden presentarse al mismo tiempo si la izquierda aspira a la oportunidad de ganar. Ahora bien, aunque todos los izquierdistas se beneficiarán si se unen en torno a un solo candidato, aquéllos pueden no estar de acuerdo acerca de quién debería ser ese candidato. Problemas de coordinación análogos, junto con la necesidad de negociar renuncias, de votaciones estratégicas y otros tipos de coordinación estratégica, pueden surgir en todos los sistemas electorales. Aunque los estudios clásicos sobre elecciones ya trataron el tema de la coordinación, ésta es la primera obra que utiliza un modelo unificado de la teoría de juegos para estudiar la coordinación estratégica de sistemas electorales en todo el mundo. Su novedad reside además en el hecho de que, para probar la validez de proposiciones teóricas sobre los efectos de las leyes electorales, se basa en primer lugar en los distritos electorales y no en los datos nacionales de agregación. También es el primer libro que no considera únicamente lo que pasa cuando las fuerzas políticas logran resolver los problemas de coordinación inherentes a su sistema electoral, sino también qué pasa cuando fracasan. «Gary Cox ha mostrado nuevamente su manera brillante de combinar la historia política, la descripción empírica y el análisis formal. ... Éste es uno de los dos libros más importantes en su campo después de Duverger.» Iain MacLean, Nuffield College, Oxford University «Los argumentos de los análisis son a menudo originales y siempre elegantes y persuasivos. Toda la empresa queda redondeada por el lúcido estilo de escribir y la habilidad de Cox de explicar ideas sutiles con una claridad que atrae al lector inmediatamente.» Michael Laver, Triity College

Genres: Political Science, Nonfiction, Politics, Mathematics, Academic, Grad School

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Angus Lockhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bit of a slog, but it was nice to read some honest to goodness political science

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a game theoretic look at how electoral systems shape the behavior of candidates, voters, and parties, expanding on Duverger’s earlier analysis suggesting that single-member plurality contests generally tend to produce two-party competitions (or bipartism); or as formulated more generally here, there can only be M+1 viable candidates in a constituency of magnitude M.

The question of how electoral votes will translate into seats in the legislature or government as the element which shapes the collective response by candidates, parties, and voters. Voters (or elites controlling political resources, or party organizations) who do not wish to see their votes wasted on candidates that have no chance of securing a plurality, and who have some preference between the more viable alternatives, will desert non-viable candidates, which further diminishes their support and leaves them with at best, only a small core of supporters.

The author also spends some time expanding Duverger's largely assumed linkage between a the electoral contest that produces a two-party system at the local level, and the formation of the two-party system at the national level, which he primarily attributes to elections for the national executive that also encourage bipartism, and thus coalition formation amongst legislators.

While I ended up glossing over some of the more mathematical proof-heavy sections, I did find this very useful and fairly clear as a guide for understanding the basic components of an electoral system, and a comparisons between the taxonomy of electoral systems (the main ones of interest for me being single member plurality, proportional representation, and single non-transferrable vote, as well as single-ballot versus dual-ballot runoffs).

The main value I think was actually in more clearly identifying the conditions in which strategic voting / bipartism does not occur and there is a “coordination failure” — namely cases where voters have intense first-choice preferences and do not care about ranking the alternatives; cases where voters are not participating out of a short-term rational interest in the election outcome but for other purposes, such as solidarity; strong certainty in the outcome that precludes any need to abandon one’s first preference; or lack of any clear information about voter intentions.

While I do subscribe to the notion that systems and institutions generally structure our choices, I think many of these conditions apply in many of electoral contests I’ve worked on in the past, suggesting a limited applicability for the overall theory. But it was a useful reference text and may help identify issues for future study.