IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/grdene/v26y2017i6d10.1007_s10726-017-9540-z.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Third Vote Experiment: Enhancing Policy Representation of a Student Parliament

Author

Listed:
  • Andranik Tangian

    (Hans Böckler Foundation
    Karlsruhe Institute of Technology)

Abstract

Since voters are often swayed more by the personal image of politicians than by party manifestos, they may cast votes that are in opposition to their policy preferences. This results in the election of representatives who do not correspond exactly to the voters’ own views. An alternative voting procedure to avoid this type of election failure is prompted by the approach implemented in internet voting advice applications, like the German Wahl-O-Mat, which asks the user a number of questions on topical policy issues; the computer program, drawing on all the parties’ answers, finds for the user the best-matching party, the second-best-matching party, etc. Under the proposed alternative election method, the voters cast no direct votes. Rather, they are asked about their preferences on the policy issues as declared in the party manifestos (Introduce nationwide minimum wage? Yes/No; Introduce a speed limit on the motorways? Yes/No, etc.), which reveals the balance of public opinion on each issue. These embedded referenda measure the degree to which the parties’ policies match the preferences of the electorate. The parliament seats are then distributed among the parties in proportion to their indices of popularity (the average percentage of the population represented on all the issues) and universality (frequency in representing a majority). This paper reports on an experimental application of this method during the election of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Student Parliament on July 4–8, 2016. The experiment shows that the alternative election method can increase the representativeness of the Student Parliament. We also discuss some traits and bottlenecks of the method that should be taken into account when preparing elections.

Suggested Citation

  • Andranik Tangian, 2017. "The Third Vote Experiment: Enhancing Policy Representation of a Student Parliament," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 26(6), pages 1091-1124, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:grdene:v:26:y:2017:i:6:d:10.1007_s10726-017-9540-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s10726-017-9540-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10726-017-9540-z
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10726-017-9540-z?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Miller, Warren E. & Stokes, Donald E., 1963. "Constituency Influence in Congress," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 57(1), pages 45-56, March.
    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. Tangian, Andranik S., 2018. "Testing the improved third vote during the 2018 election of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology student parliament," Working Paper Series in Economics 117, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Department of Economics and Management.

    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. Christopher J Williams, 2016. "Issuing reasoned opinions: The effect of public attitudes towards the European Union on the usage of the 'Early Warning System'," European Union Politics, , vol. 17(3), pages 504-521, September.
    2. Mattozzi, Andrea & Snowberg, Erik, 2018. "The right type of legislator: A theory of taxation and representation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 54-65.
    3. Kim Quaile Hill & Tetsuya Matsubayashi, 2008. "Church Engagement, Religious Values, and Mass‐Elite Policy Agenda Agreement in Local Communities," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(3), pages 570-584, July.
    4. Hanna Ågren & Matz Dahlberg & Eva Mörk, 2007. "Do politicians’ preferences correspond to those of the voters? An investigation of political representation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 130(1), pages 137-162, January.
    5. Robert E. Hogan, 2008. "Policy Responsiveness and Incumbent Reelection in State Legislatures," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(4), pages 858-873, October.
    6. Dennis, Christopher, 1998. "Support for campaign spending limitations in the U. S. senate: The role of party, ideology and electoral security," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 641-649.
    7. Olle Folke & Johanna Rickne, 2020. "Who wins preference votes? An analysis of party loyalty, ideology, and accountability to voters," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 32(1), pages 11-35, January.
    8. Tanya Bagashka, 2014. "Representation in Hybrid Regimes: Constituency and Party Influences on Legislative Voting in the Russian Duma 1996–1999," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 95(2), pages 486-506, June.
    9. Roman Senninger & Daniel Bischof, 2018. "Working in unison: Political parties and policy issue transfer in the multilevel space," European Union Politics, , vol. 19(1), pages 140-162, March.
    10. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen, 2008. "Issue Unbundling via Citizens' Initiatives," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 3(4), pages 379-397, December.
    11. Mark N. Franklin & Christopher Wlezien, 1997. "The Responsive Public," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 9(3), pages 347-363, July.
    12. Karin Gilland Lutz & Christopher Farrington, 2006. "Alternative Ulster? Political Parties and the Non‐constitutional Policy Space in Northern Ireland," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 54(4), pages 715-742, December.
    13. Thomas J. Hayes, 2014. "Do Citizens Link Attitudes with Preferences? Economic Inequality and Government Spending in the “New Gilded Age”," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 95(2), pages 468-485, June.
    14. Mark Souva, 2005. "Foreign Policy Determinants: Comparing Realist and Domestic-Political Models of Foreign Policy," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 22(2), pages 149-163, April.
    15. Kevin Arceneaux & Johanna Dunaway & Stuart Soroka, 2018. "Elites are people, too: The effects of threat sensitivity on policymakers’ spending priorities," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(4), pages 1-8, April.
    16. Scott Sigmund Gartner & Gary M. Segura & Michael Wilkening, 1997. "All Politics Are Local," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 41(5), pages 669-694, October.
    17. Jamie L. Carson & Gregory Koger & Matthew J. Lebo & Everett Young, 2010. "The Electoral Costs of Party Loyalty in Congress," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(3), pages 598-616, July.
    18. Franklin G. Mixon & Chandini Sankaran & Kamal P. Upadhyaya, 2019. "Is Political Ideology Stable? Evidence from Long-Serving Members of the United States Congress," Economies, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-19, May.
    19. Agyei, Frank Kwaku & Adjei, Prince Osei-Wusu, 2017. "Representation without accountability in forestry: experiences from the Social Responsibility Agreement in Ghana," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 34-43.
    20. Roberto Brunetti & Matthieu Pourieux, 2023. "Representative Policy-Makers? A Behavioral Experiment with French Politicians," Working Papers 2319, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Policy representation; Representative democracy; Direct democracy; Elections; Coalitions; Theory of voting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

    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:spr:grdene:v:26:y:2017:i:6:d:10.1007_s10726-017-9540-z. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.