JOSEP COLOMER'S BLOG

2012-01-19T20:27:00.001-01:00

From Medieval Voting to Social Choice

Ramon Llull (Majorca c.1232–1316) is one of the earliest founding fathers of voting theory and social choice theory. The present article places Llull’s contributions and discussion in the historical context of elections in the medieval Church and the emergence of majority rule as a new general principle for making enforceable collective decisions in replacement of traditional unanimous requirements. To make the majority principle operational, Llull initially proposed a system of exhaustive binary comparisons that is more efficacious in producing a winner than the Condorcet system, in anticipation to the so called Copeland procedure. In contrast to some previous tentative suggestions, careful reading of Llull’s papers demonstrates that he did not propose a rank-order count system, such as those proposed later on by Cusanus and Borda. A new hypothesis is presented to explain Llull’s later proposal of an eliminatory system of partial binary comparisons, as oriented to break frequent ties. Some performance of Llull’s voting systems is estimated by innovative analysis of results in certain modern sports tournaments.

See the article in Social Choice and Welfare: CLICK

Up with Wikipedia

2011-12-28T15:52:00.000-01:00

Dear Josep,

Here's how the Wikipedia fundraiser works: Every year we raise just the funds that we need, and then we stop.

Because you and so many other Wikipedia readers donated over the past weeks, we are very close to raising our goal for this year by December 31 -- but we're not quite there yet.

You've already done your part this year. Thank you so much. But you can help us again by forwarding this email to a friend who you know relies on Wikipedia and asking that person to help us reach our goal today by clicking here and making a donation.

If everyone reading this email forwarded it to just one friend, we think that would be enough to let us end the fundraiser today.

Google might have close to a million servers. Yahoo has something like 13,000 staff. We have 679 servers and 95 staff.

Wikipedia is the #5 site on the web and serves 470 million different people every month – with billions of page views.

Commerce is fine. Advertising is not evil. But it doesn't belong here. Not in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park. It is like a temple for the mind. It is a place we can all go to think, to learn, to share our knowledge with others.

When I founded Wikipedia, I could have made it into a for-profit company with advertising, but I decided to do something different. We’ve worked hard over the years to keep it lean and tight. We fulfill our mission, and leave waste to others.

Thanks again for your support this year. Please help spread the word by forwarding this email to someone you know.

Thanks,
Jimmy Wales
Wikipedia Founder

Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
P.O. Box 98204
Washington, DC 20090-8204
United States of America

2011-12-10T23:47:00.005-01:00

Igualmente!

Sebastian Royo

Suffolk University

xxx

And all best for holidays and 2012 to you Josep

Steven

Steven Kennedy

Palgrave Macmillan

xxx

Felicidades querido colega

Dr. Andy S. Gomez

Assistant Provost & Senior Fellow
Institute for Cuban & Cuban-American Studies.
University of Miami

xxx

Gracias por la felicitación, Josep. Un saludo muy cordial.

Covadonga

Covadonga Messeguer

CIDE, Mexico

xxx

Querido Josep:

Muchas gracias y muchas felicidades.
Un abrazo
Leandro

Leandro Prados de la Escosura

Professor of Economic History
Departamento de Historia Económica e Instituciones
Universidad Carlos III
28903 Getafe (Madrid), Spain

xxx

Dear Professor Colomer!

Merry Christmas and happy New Year! All the best!

Sincerely Yours,
Tatiana Alekseeva

Prof. Alekseeva T.A.

Moscow

xxx

Benvolgut Josep,

Gràcies, bones festes i bona estada a Washington.
Cordialment,

Fernando Guirao

Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Barcelona

xxx

You struck again !

Bset wishes to you too. Towards an " Annus horribilissimusssssss " ????

Y. Mény

European University Institute
Firenze

xxx

Dear Prof. Colomer,

Ah! What a great cartoon.. I'll have to do the same and put it on my door.

Ashley Beale

Georgetown University
Washington

xxx

Josep--
Thanks for the good (?) greeting. All best to you & yours for '12 & beyond.
John

John Bailey

Georgetown University
Washington

xxx

Espero que, al menos, sea algo mejor que 2011,
Feliz anyo

Jose Vinals

International Monetary Fund
Washington

xxxx

happy new year Josep
ya veo q abordas el 2012 cargado de Euro-optimismo :)

Pedro Gete

Georgetown UniversityWashington

xxx

Muchas gracias, Josep.

Lo mismo digo.
Un abrazo,Miguel Jerez
Universidad de Granada

xxxx

Moltes gracies, Josep.

Best Christmas and New Year wishes to you! Like you -- and as you know -- I have my concerns about the new year, but I certainly hope that they are overblown, so to speak! abracada
,Robert

Robert Fishman

Notre Dame University

xxx

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Fear!

Un abrazo,
Paul

Paul Isbell

Inter-American Dialogue
Washington

xxx

Happy New Year!

All the best
Sara

Sara Pina

Lisboa

xxx

And of course happy holidays and very happy new year to you!
Best, Cynthia

Cynthia McClintock

George Washington University

xxx

And happy holidays to you too.

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita

NYU & Hoover

xxx

Thanks, Josep -- and a very Happy 2012 to you, too!

Arend

Arend Lijphart

California, San Diego

2011-12-04T15:15:00.004-01:00

presents

"Election and Government Turnover in Spain"
A Roundtable on the November 20th Spanish Election

featuring

Laia Balcells, Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), Barcelona
Jose Fernandez-Albertos, CSIC, Madrid
Robert Fishman, University of Notre Dame and Pompeu Fabra University

with

Eusebio Mujal-Leon, Georgetown University,

and Josep Colomer, Prince of Asturias Chair, Georgetown University

Wednesday, November 30th
6-8pm
ICC 450, Georgetown University

To RSVP click here.

Please direct all questions to cgesevents@georgetown.edu.

"Political Consequences of the Economic Crisis in Europe”

2011-2012 Event Series

BMW Center for German and European Studies, Georgetown University

2011-11-03T18:01:00.002-01:00

Learning (again) from the Noble Prize in Economics

The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 2011 has been awarded jointly to Thomas J. Sargent and Christopher A. Sims "for their empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy"

See how their discussion “on cause and effect” can be enlightening for other sciences:

“Let us discuss a couple of examples in economics and political science to discuss causality and directionality of the relationship between variables.

Consider an economic law, traditionally represented by the so-called Phillips curve, which postulates a trade-off between inflation and unemployment.

There are two ways to read the Phillips curve. The ‘classical’ or ‘monetarist’ point of view implied that a decrease in unemployment would produce higher inflation, leading thus to the invitation to regress change in inflation on unemployment. A Keynesian reading, however, implied the opposite. If the government increases the quantity of money (through monetary of fiscal policy), while inflation may rise, it will reduce unemployment. The mathematical consequence is that different parameters can be obtained in the relationship between the two variables depending on which direction is used. The slope of the Phillips curve will be different if unemployment is regressed on inflation rather than inflation on unemployment. The Phillips curve appears to be flatter under the Keynesian direction (for instance, a decrease of 5 percentage points in unemployment may produce an increase of 5 points in inflation, but, under the same circumstances, only an increase of 10 points in inflation may be able to produce a 5 point decrease in unemployment; see Thomas Sargent, The Conquest of American Inflation, Princeton University Press, 1999).

The long-lasting controversy in the past between ‘monetarists’ and ‘Keynesians’ suggests that lack of appropriate statistical techniques probably hindered both sound understanding and efficient policy-making in this important field.”

Excerpt from:

Josep Colomer, ‘What Other Sciences Look Like’, European Political Science, 2007: 134-142.

For the article: CLICK

2011-10-30T20:51:00.004-01:00

The More Parties, the Greater Policy Stability

The outcome of the United Kingdom election in 2010 overturned long sustained beliefs about the virtues of Westminster-style governance. At least for a while, the country has moved to the kind of multiparty coalition politics that is more common in other parliamentary democracies. The new Prime Minister, David Cameron, said that the new Conservative-Liberal coalition government ‘marks a clean break from the past and a new start for the country’. He may have meant a break with not only the previous period of Labour party governments, but with several decades of single-party governments and significant instability of major public policies.

The attached article discusses, models and quantifies the relationship between the number of parties in government and the degree of policy change or instability. Single-party governments, such as those formed in the United Kingdom for several decades, tend to produce very high levels of policy changes and reversals, whereas multiparty coalition governments, such as the ones in Switzerland or Israel, tend to produce a high degree of stability and little policy change. This relationship is studied for 295 elections and the subsequent governments in twenty-four countries since the Second World War. According to the study, there is a strong negative correlation between the number of parties in government (NPG) and the degree of policy change (Ch), according to the formula:

30% / NPG = Ch

The fewer parties in government the more changes, and vice versa.

For the article, as published in the journal European Political Science:
CLICK

COMMENTS

That looks really interesting.THX!

Robert Klemmensen

Syddansk Universitet

Denmark

------

Muy bueno tu articulo Josep !!

Saludos cordiales

Jorge Lanzaro

Instituto de Ciencia Política Universidad de la República

Montevideo – Uruguay

-------

Dear Josep,

Unfortunately I did not have conditions to attend your presentation lastFriday at the IADB.However, I liked a lot reading your paper especially because I found yourfindings present great parallel with a paper that I recently published atthe Latin American Politics and Society - LAPS.In this paper, my co-authors and I demonstrate that an increase in executivepower decreases policy stability most drastically when legislatures areweak. However, when legislatures are strong, an increase in the executive¹spower has no affect on policy stability. Phrased differently, when executivepower is large because legislative power (relative to executive power) islow, increasing the executive¹s power will likely lead to an alteration ofthe status quo, as he may change policy with relative ease.Thus, whereas, in your paper, the institution protecting the status quo and leading to more policy stability is the greater number of political parties,in our paper it is the power held by legislatures the key aspect protecting the status quo. If you have interest, please find enclosed a copy of our paper. I look forward to receiving your reactions.Cheers,

Carlos Pereira

Fundação Getulio Vargas ¬ FGV

Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

2011-09-25T20:56:00.010Z

New Book:

Personal Representation

From the Introduction:

An efficient electoral system for a representative democratic government must include appropriate rules for both party representation and personal representation. Many classifications and analyses of electoral systems focus on the distinction between majority- and proportional-rules. By doing this they address only party representation, but neglect the second essential element of any electoral system: personal representation. Some basic elements of an electoral system,mainly district magnitude (or number of seats to be elected in each district)and the electoral formula, are tools to allocate seats to parties, that is, to produce party representation.The voting procedure as shaped by the ballot form, to be studied here, deals with the allocation of seats to persons in order to produce personal representation. An electoral system can include rules to allocate both seats to parties and persons in order to produce both party and personal representation.

The aim of this book is to clarify the importance of these two elements of electoral systems and, given the understudy of voting formulas for personal representation, to present a basic analytical framework and a number of applied analyses on the following aspects:the different procedures of voting for individual candidates, their origins and consequences, their degree of compatibility with formulas for party representation, and the contexts,strategies and normative criteria for the choice of personal representation formulas.

…

All in all, there seems to exist, as is logical to expect, significant empirical correlations between high opportunities for personal representation in the ballot form and the electoral system, the adoption of moderate policy positions by parties and candidates, the use of open internal procedures by political parties, and the actual choice of individual candidates by voters.
...

See more here:

CLICK

To buy the book:
CLICK

COMMENTS

Josep

Good to see you are back blogging

Ben Reilly

Johns Hopkins University

....

He visto uno de tus ultimos libros publicados, se ve excelente y espero poder acceder pronto. Esta bastante sugestiva la comparacion que haces. El cuadro de tu tipologia de los partidos publicado en tu blog invita a leer tu libro.

Grace Ivana Deheza

Miami

....

I know I will be referencing this book a lot in my own work in this area. It is a terrific contribution to the literature.

Thank you and congratulations!

Matthew S. Shugart

U. California-San Diego

...

Dear Professor Colomer,

Please find enclosed the announcement of my new book with Rida Laraki. I hope that it my interest you.

Best wishes,

Michel Balinski

Paris

Majority Judgment

Measuring, Ranking, and Electing

Michel Balinski and Rida Laraki

Available at bookstores or online at

http://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262015134

...

Felicitats per tanta producció, tant ben rebuda!

Salvador Barbera

...

Muchas gracias, siempre me interesaron mucho tus escritos.

Dentro de tus libros, no estoy seguro si fue el primero que lei pero probablemente el que mas influencia tuvo en mi fue "El Arte de la Manipulacion Politica". Excelente.

Carlos Scartascini

Inter-American Development Bank

...

Stephen B. Kaplan

thanks Josep. I look forward to reading

George Washington University

...

Thanks for the link to your blog. It is very useful and educational!

I was unaware of your work, which seems quite interesting. My excuse for my ignorance is that I am a relative novice to this area despite my age. I have been occupied on other issues, see http://econweb.umd.edu/~betancourt/, and started working on the ones most directly related to political science in the last few years.

Roger Betancourt

University of Maryland

2011-09-05T22:16:00.006Z

Anthony Downs in APSA

From left:
Alan Renwick, Shaun Bowler, ANTHONY DOWNS, Josep Colomer

The Representation and Electoral Systems section of the American Political Science Association presents the

George H. Hallett Award

which is given to “the author of a book published at least 10 years ago that has made a lasting contribution to the literature on representation and electoral systems” to

Anthony Downs

for his book

An Economic Theory of Democracy

which was published for the first time in 1957

Statement

An Economic Theory of Democracy is a seminal work. It is among the handful of most widely cited books in the entire field of political science and its impact continues to grow. This book has been immensely influential in the study of party strategies, voter choice, voter turnout, electoral system effects, and the role of information in politics. Many of its key ideas: ‘spatial’ party competition, two party convergence, the attraction of the median voter’s preference, rational ignorance, cues as information shortcuts, coalitions of intense minorities, have become part of the common stock of knowledge in the study of politics. Anthony Downs has achieved perhaps the highest accolade any academic can hope for; he has become an adjective. Even some questioned aspects of the ‘Downsian’ approach have sparked important theoretical inquiries and empirical investigations, as, for example, crucial individual decisions, such as whether to vote, for whom to vote, or which policy to choose, can be understood as strategic interactions depending on what other individuals are expected to do. Other extensions have spawned large literatures on topics such as multiparty competition, voting and elections over a multidimensional set of issues, agenda-setting, inter-institutional relations and, more generally, interactions among actors whose positions can be located within some policy ‘space’. Thousands of scholars over more than five decades have drawn inspiration from this book.

Hallett Award Committee: Josep Colomer, Bernard Grofman, Alan Renwick

Section Chair: Shawn Bowler

With grateful acknowledgement to the Georgetown University BMW Center for German and European Studies (CGES) and the University of California Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) for their sponsorship of the APSA 2011 Hallett Award Lecture.

2011-03-07T15:46:00.000-01:00

Is Islam Compatible with Democracy?

Excerpt from my textbook The Science of Politics. An Introduction

(Oxford University Press, 2010)

A minimal democracy based on freedom and elections does not require an ideological commitment by the citizens, and should thus be compatible with any religion or creed. However, there seems to be a factual association between Islam and dictatorship in the current world. The vast majority of countries with a majority of Muslims, which are mainly located in North Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the former Soviet Union, have dictatorial regimes. Actually, more than half of all nondemocratic countries in the world have a Muslim majority.

However, the apparent incongruity between democratic politics and Muslim religion may not be more solid than the traditional wisdom that denied democratic capacity to the countries with a Catholic majority. A succession of democratic failures in Latin European and Latin American countries with a Catholic majority during most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries gave some ground to the suspicion that a redeeming and proselytizing religion such as Catholicism could not acknowledge legitimacy to governments not committed to its morals and doctrines. In fact, the Popes prohibited the participation of Catholics in elections and political parties until as late as 1931. There were a few previous experiences of parties and movements of Catholic inspiration that participated in liberal politics in France and Italy, but Christian-democratic parties were widely diffused only after the Second World War. From that moment on, however, not only did those parties become important components of democracy in a number of countries, but the Catholic Church itself helped processes of democratization in places such as Spain, Central America, and Poland.

At a second glance, one can see that the most brutal political regimes in the Muslim world are not religious governments, but military or personalistic dictatorships, occasionally using interpretations of the Muslim doctrine in some of their policies. In contrast, new Muslim democratic parties, somehow comparable to the old Christian-democrats, have competed in democratic elections and participated in governments in certain countries, such as Indonesia and Turkey. If, together with these, we count the Muslim minorities living in India and other countries, about one third of the 1.5 billion Muslims of the world may be living under democratically elected governments. If anything, this fact suggests that there may not be intrinsic incompatibility between individual Muslim faith and collective democratic rule. A viable democracy requires religion to be a private affair and the source of one opinion among others in the public debate and political contest.

2010-07-20T14:04:00.006Z

New Textbook!

The Science of Politics
An Introduction

Josep M. Colomer

"I don't think that anyone has tried to write something like this before. If one wants to give an overview of political science, then this is about the only book there is!"--James A. Robinson, Harvard University

"At long last, a text that puts science back into political science; at the same time, it is not an 'American government and politics' text masquerading as an introduction to political science. I am delighted with it. The central concept of the 'public good' lends coherence to the organization of the book and allows Josep M. Colomer to integrate a vast amount of material encompassing all levels of analysis. The product is a remarkable achievement."--Abdalla Battah, Minnesota State University, Mankato

"The Science of Politics: An Introduction aims to do something that no other political science textbook currently does: to lay out the key 'things we know' about politics that satisfy the criteria of simplicity, practicality, and historical relevance. It is very well written, with an authoritative style that clearly demonstrates an impressive sweep of historical knowledge and understanding. . . . It has an analytical coherence which is consistent throughout the book, in line with the goal to be 'scientific'. This style completely distinguishes this text from others in the field and is a key selling point for students. I would recommend it to others without hesitation."--Helen Margetts, University of Oxford

For Table of Contents and Intro to the book:

CLICK

For the book as advertised and to be purchased at the Oxford U.P. site:

CLICK

2010-07-14T08:58:00.006Z

Kurdistan Goes Ahead

I recently visited Turkey, invited by Istanbul Aydin University, to discuss the prospects for the country to become a member of the European Union. I went there rather pessimistic about these prospects and left with the impression that most Turks are actually giving up the European option.

One of the controversial points in the exchanges with Turskish scholars and politicians was the Kurds. The pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party was recently banned by the Turkish Constitutional Court, forcing its 20 members of parliament to act as "independents". Just before my presentation I was warned by the organizers not to use the word "Kurdistan" in public, and refer, in case of necessity, just to "the Kurds".

Now the editor in chief of the political weekly magazine Gulan, which is edited in the "autonomous region of Kurdistan" in Iraq, has published an interview in which we discuss the successful experience of rebuilding a country with democratic principles in the context of a larger union.

جۆزیپ كۆلۆمەر بۆ گوڵان: پرۆسەی بونیادنانەوەی نەتەوە پێویستی بەكاری دەستەجەمعی هاووڵاتیان و كۆدەنگیی
كۆمەڵایەتی هەیە

See the original version in Kurdish language:
CLICK

Translation:

Weekly Gulan Magazine
Kurdistan, Iraq.

Ferhad M. Hassan, Editor in Chief

Interview with Josep M. Colomer, Professor of Political Science

* Nation Building process is one of the hardest stages in any given society. Many of the observers think that the leader of the nation plays an effective role in the process of Nation Building. So, the question is; according to your opinion; how far do you think that the existence of a qualified leader may lead to the success of the Nation Building Process?

- Yes, all organized societies need leaders. These are people who have the capacity to identify common goals for the citizens of the country; they also need good communication skills and organizational capacity.

* In the process of Nation Building, organizing the structures of the country is everybody's duty, and all the individuals should participate in this process. And the question is; in the very beginnings of nation building process, how far do you think that the potentials and abilities of the individuals in the society can be stimulated in building the structures?

- Building a country implies building collective rules and institutions that all (or at least a very broad majority) of citizens can accept and comply with. This requires collective action and large social consensus, which are favored if people share similar economic, social and cultural characteristics. Generally, members of small countries can be more effective in obtaining their desired collective goals than large, disperse, and heterogeneous groups. Within each small group, individual members may have incentives to participate actively because their voice or their vote is likely to have an influence, and because interactions are relatively easy and frequent.

* When the post-war countries start with nation building process, and not all of them succeed, but of course there are successful examples, such as; Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore. While on the other hand, African countries and Latin America failed. The question is; what are the reasons behind these differences?

- Some countries, such as some you mention, have been successfully built or rebuilt after suffering military defeat, occupation, and reconstruction. In contrast, other former colonies of European powers have failed, in my opinion because they tried to replicate the typical European “state” form of government of the former colonial metropolis in inappropriate contexts. Nowadays the traditional model of “sovereign” state is being abandoned even in Europe, by building the European Union as a large federation of states. Instead of a single source of “sovereignty”, the current world requires multiple levels of local, state, and federal government, each with different responsibilities. Great countries can be better organized if they adopt a federal structure. Successful collective action can result from the union of a number of small, autonomous units.

* Many, if not all, of economists and politicians are connecting the success of the Nation Building Process with applying Market Economy and Free Economy, and they focus less on democracy processes and the liberties. And the question is; since they are emphasizing the most on the economical aspect. So, do you think that a strong economy paves the way for democracy?

- A strong economy does pave the way for democracy. But a strong economy needs two foundations. One is economic freedom; in the current world with large scale transports and communications a small country can prosper only if it is open to international trade and exchanges. But the other element is the provision of public goods, including infrastructures, security, justice, and schools, which must be provided by public powers.

* Iraq is a post-war country where the United States of America is closely and directly following its nation building process. But the U.S failed in Iraq regarding to this matter. While on the other hand; and within Iraq's frame, the Iraqi Kurdish population has succeeded in rebuilding their country. Thus, the question is; according to your opinion, why does the U.S failed in Iraq?

- The U.S. failed in Iraq because they tried to apply the doctrine that the establishment of democratic regimes requires nation-state building. This is mistaken, since democratic forms of government have existed and exist in many different forms of community, not necessarily nation-states. In the Arab region, to strengthen states would be a very hard endeavor, especially in the most ethnically heterogeneous countries, such as Iraq, but also Afghanistan or Lebanon. If sovereign units were strengthened in isolation from each other, a higher degree of stateness could, paradoxically, jeopardize the chances of freedom and democracy, since it might revive or foster new inter-state rivalries and mutually hostile relations. In particular, Iraq can be either a federation of self-governing territorial governments or a new failed state. The federalization of Iraq implies undoing what the British colonialists did when the Ottoman empire collapsed at the end of World War. I think Kurdistan is nowadays a very good example of rebuilding a country with democratic principles and in the context of a larger union.

* How far can we consider the processes of Nation Building in the Eastern Asian countries as successful examples, in particular South Korea and Taiwan? And according to your opinion; how is it possible to learn and take advantages from these examples in order to make the processes of Nation Building in the developing countries be succeeded?

- I think these two are not very good examples, because South Korea is only a part of Korea, and the Northern part is separated and in the hands of one of the worst dictatorial regimes in the world, while Taiwan is an island, and formed by emigrated Chinese from mainland China.

* So far, the standard for the success of the Nation Building Process was restricted within an idea that says; the country should be as developed as the western countries, then the nation building process will be succeeded. According to your opinion; do you think that this standard is right? And what are the reasons?

- In some aspects, the traditional “West European model” of building nation-states is obsolete in Europe itself. Europe suffered long periods of prolonged conflict and internal warfare among states and achieved democratization and peace-making only thanks to the building of a continental Union able to save most states from the task of building their own centralized bureaucracies, armies and borders controls. In the Arab world, democratization and peace-making could be more successful if it also ran in parallel to the establishment of large-size areas of free trade and military and security cooperation. A union of Arab democracies, in several cases organized as federations of smaller units, like the project for Iraq, could be a more effective model than the attempt to build sovereign national states.

x x x x x x x x

Europe, like America

--New book, available from here

The processes of building the United States of America since the late-eighteenth century and the European Union since mid-twentieth century are among the major claims for the possibility of a vast, continental-size polity based on democratic principles. While the European Union project is still full of uncertainties, the previous experience of building the United States of America offers the best reference for advancing towards a democratic federation.

In this new volume from the Economic Studies Series of the Research Department of ”la Caixa”, Josep M. Colomer shows that the territorial limits of the European Union, like those of the American Union in the past, are not determined by geography or destiny but reflect the union’s capacity to assimilate and institutionalize its components. Building an empire from previously existing states implies renouncing a single source of sovereignty in favour of dividing power among multiple levels of government.

The booklet (barely 100 pages) is available here:
CLICK

2010-07-09T13:11:00.007Z

Nothing More Practical
than a Good Theory

Advances in formal political theory have found direct applications for solving conflicts and making decisions in the real world. Here you can find three remarkable examples of private companies created by scholars which are able to disseminate sophisticated knowledge among practitioners and decision-makers in the aim of promoting efficiency and fairness.

The Median Voter

The median voter’s theorem has been applied to settings in which there are no formal elections, but where a decisive actor with the median properties can be identified. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita’s Predictioneers’ Game offers the possibility of analyzing a situation of potential conflict among groups or countries by estimating three parameters: the relative positions of the actors, their potential influence in producing an outcome, and the importance of the issue for each actor.

CLICK

Fair Division

In cases of disputes or negotiations, certain algorithms grounded in game theory enable the parties to find fair and equitable outcomes. Steven Brams’s formulas of fair division have been applied to conflicts ranging from divorce to international border disputes.
Fair Outcomes, Inc. provides tools for “Fair Buy-Sell”, “Fair Proposals”, “Fair Reputations”, and especially for “Fair Division” in cases in which two parties must divide up multiple items of property or resolve multiple issues that are in dispute. The website includes several examples and applications, as well as interactive pages that are useful for teaching and research, including for the “Adjusted Winner” successful procedure.

CLICK

Spatial Voting

Multidimensional spaces can be identified for real politicians, such as the members of the U.S. Congress. The WinSet Group, LLC has presented some of its products at conferences of the Public Choice society and the American Political Science Association. In particular, the CyberSenate program is able to locate spatial positions of U.S. senators in a multiple issue policy space on the basis of previous votes, as shown in the graph below, with solid capability for prediction and advice.
The website announces “Download options coming soon...”

CLICK

2010-06-13T15:40:00.007Z

"Constitutions and Constitutionalism",
"Comparative Constitutional Systems",
"Electoral Rules",
"Comparative Electoral Systms"
"Electoral Reform"
"Democratic Transition"
"Governance"

My contributions to The Encyclopedia of Political Science, CQ Press.
(G. Garrett, M. Levi, P. McClain, J. Alt, S. Chambers eds.):

CLICK