IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jothpo/v28y2016i2p331-349.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social choice and popular control

Author

Listed:
  • Sean Ingham

Abstract

In democracies citizens are supposed to have some control over the general direction of policy. According to a pretheoretical interpretation of this idea, the people have control if elections and other democratic institutions compel officials to do what the people want, or what the majority want. This interpretation of popular control fits uncomfortably with insights from social choice theory; some commentators—Riker, most famously—have argued that these insights should make us abandon the idea of popular rule as traditionally understood. This article presents a formal theory of popular control that responds to the challenge from social choice theory. It makes precise a sense in which majorities may be said to have control even if the majority preference relation has an empty core. And it presents a simple game-theoretic model to illustrate how majorities can exercise control in this specified sense, even when incumbents are engaged in purely re-distributive policymaking and the majority rule core is empty.

Suggested Citation

  • Sean Ingham, 2016. "Social choice and popular control," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 28(2), pages 331-349, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:28:y:2016:i:2:p:331-349
    DOI: 10.1177/0951629815586876
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0951629815586876
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0951629815586876?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. Patty,John W. & Penn,Elizabeth Maggie, 2014. "Social Choice and Legitimacy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521138338, September.
    2. Donald G. Saari, 1997. "The generic existence of a core for q -rules (*)," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 9(2), pages 219-260.
    3. McKelvey, Richard D, 1979. "General Conditions for Global Intransitivities in Formal Voting Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(5), pages 1085-1112, September.
    4. Dryzek, John S. & List, Christian, 2003. "Social Choice Theory and Deliberative Democracy: A Reconciliation," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 33(1), pages 1-28, January.
    5. Eric Maskin & Jean Tirole, 2004. "The Politician and the Judge: Accountability in Government," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 1034-1054, September.
    6. Norman Schofield, 2003. "Valence Competition in the Spatial Stochastic Model," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 15(4), pages 371-383, October.
    7. McKelvey, Richard D & Schofield, Norman, 1987. "Generalized Symmetry Conditions at a Core Point," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(4), pages 923-933, July.
    8. John Ferejohn, 1986. "Incumbent performance and electoral control," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 5-25, January.
    9. Tovey, Craig A., 2010. "The instability of instability of centered distributions," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 53-73, January.
    10. Robert Barro, 1973. "The control of politicians: An economic model," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 19-42, March.
    11. Patty,John W. & Penn,Elizabeth Maggie, 2014. "Social Choice and Legitimacy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521191012, September.
    12. Ansolabehere, Stephen & Snyder, James M, Jr, 2000. "Valence Politics and Equilibrium in Spatial Election Models," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 103(3-4), pages 327-336, June.
    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. Gerard Padró i Miquel & Erik Snowberg, 2012. "The lesser evil: Executive accountability with partisan supporters," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 24(1), pages 19-45, January.
    2. Francesco Caselli & Tom Cunningham & Massimo Morelli & Inés Moreno de Barreda, 2012. "Signalling, Incumbency Advantage, and Optimal Reelection Rules," CEP Discussion Papers dp1122, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    3. Banks, Jeffrey S. & Duggan, John, 2008. "A Dynamic Model of Democratic Elections in Multidimensional Policy Spaces," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 3(3), pages 269-299, October.
    4. Caselli, Francesco & Morelli, Massimo & Moreno de Barreda, Inés & Cunningham, Tom, 2012. "Signalling, Incumbency Advantage, and Optimal Reelection Thresholds," CEPR Discussion Papers 8832, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Christian Schultz, 2003. "Information, Polarization and Delegation in Democracy," CESifo Working Paper Series 1104, CESifo.
    6. Lagunoff, Roger, 2006. "Credible communication in dynastic government," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1-2), pages 59-86, January.
    7. Alvaro Forteza & Juan S. Pereyra, 2021. "Separation of powers with ideological parties," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 33(3), pages 333-382, July.
    8. César Martinelli & John Duggan, 2014. "The Political Economy of Dynamic Elections: A Survey and Some New Results," Working Papers 1403, Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM.
    9. Banks, Jeffrey S. & Duggan, John & Le Breton, Michel, 2002. "Bounds for Mixed Strategy Equilibria and the Spatial Model of Elections," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 88-105, March.
    10. Arnaud Dellis, 2009. "The Salient Issue of Issue Salience," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 11(2), pages 203-231, April.
    11. Ernesto Dal Bó & Pedro Dal Bó & Erik Eyster, 2018. "The Demand for Bad Policy when Voters Underappreciate Equilibrium Effects," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(2), pages 964-998.
    12. Leif Helland & Rune Sørensen, 2012. "Persistent rent extraction," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 205-213, October.
    13. Gabriel Leon, 2013. "Bad Apples: Political Paralysis and the Quality of Politicians," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 15(3), pages 433-447, June.
    14. Tovey, Craig A., 2010. "The instability of instability of centered distributions," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 53-73, January.
    15. Gabriele Gratton & Massimo Morelli, 2022. "Optimal Checks And Balances Under Policy Uncertainty," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 63(2), pages 549-569, May.
    16. Mariana Lopes da Fonseca, 2016. "Candid Lame Ducks," CESifo Working Paper Series 5773, CESifo.
    17. Zudenkova, Galina, 2011. "Cronyism in Business, Public Sector and Politics," MPRA Paper 30231, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Karthik Reddy & Moritz Schularick & Vasiliki Skreta, 2020. "Immunity," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 61(2), pages 531-564, May.
      • Karthik Reddy & Moritz Schularick & Vasiliki Skreta, 2012. "Immunity," Working Papers 12-17, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
      • Karthik Reddy & Moritz Schularick & Vasiliki Skreta, 2013. "Immunity," Working Papers 13-04, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
      • Karthik Reddy & Moritz Schularick & Vasiliki Skreta, 2013. "Immunity," CESifo Working Paper Series 4445, CESifo.
    19. Sean Ingham, 2019. "Why Arrow’s theorem matters for political theory even if preference cycles never occur," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 179(1), pages 97-111, April.
    20. Jennings, Colin, 2011. "The good, the bad and the populist: A model of political agency with emotional voters," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 611-624.

    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:sae:jothpo:v:28:y:2016:i:2:p:331-349. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.