IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/homoec/v35y2018i1d10.1007_s41412-018-0069-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Can We Keep Direct Democracy and Avoid “Kolotoumba”

Author

Listed:
  • George Tsebelis

    (University of Michigan)

Abstract

The issue of divisive referendums, which Professor Frey identifies as one of the problems of “Democracy of the Future”, is a special case of emerging tribalism (division into non-communicating competitive groups in political and social life). This article proposes an alternative institutional solution to address tribalism in both direct and representative democracy. It introduces competition for agenda setting in referendums such that more inclusive solutions emerge; it also proposes the adoption of an electoral system that multiplies the options of the public both in direct and representative democracy in order to further empower the general public.

Suggested Citation

  • George Tsebelis, 2018. "How Can We Keep Direct Democracy and Avoid “Kolotoumba”," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 81-90, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:homoec:v:35:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s41412-018-0069-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s41412-018-0069-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41412-018-0069-4
    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/s41412-018-0069-4?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. Matsusaka, John G, 2000. "Fiscal Effects of the Voter Initiative in the First Half of the Twentieth Century," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 43(2), pages 619-650, October.
    2. Simon Hug & George Tsebelis, 2002. "Veto Players and Referendums Around the World," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 14(4), pages 465-515, October.
    3. Michel Regenwetter & Bernard Grofman, 1998. "Approval Voting, Borda Winners, and Condorcet Winners: Evidence from Seven Elections," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(4), pages 520-533, April.
    4. Bruno S. Frey, 2017. "Proposals for a Democracy of the Future," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 34(1), pages 1-9, April.
    5. Steven Brams & Peter Fishburn & Samuel Merrill, 1988. "The responsiveness of approval voting: Comments on Saari and Van Newenhizen," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 59(2), pages 121-131, November.
    6. Donald Saari & Jill Newenhizen, 1988. "The problem of indeterminacy in approval, multiple, and truncated voting systems," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 59(2), pages 101-120, November.
    7. Matsusaka, John G, 1995. "Fiscal Effects of the Voter Initiative: Evidence from the Last 30 Years," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(3), pages 587-623, June.
    8. Gibbard, Allan, 1973. "Manipulation of Voting Schemes: A General Result," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(4), pages 587-601, July.
    9. Jean-François Laslier & M. Remzi Sanver (ed.), 2010. "Handbook on Approval Voting," Studies in Choice and Welfare, Springer, number 978-3-642-02839-7, 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. Erdamar, Bora & Sanver, M. Remzi & Sato, Shin, 2017. "Evaluationwise strategy-proofness," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 227-238.
    2. Arnaud Dellis & Mandar Oak, 2016. "Multiple votes, multiple candidacies and polarization," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 46(1), pages 1-38, January.
    3. Justin Kruger & M. Remzi Sanver, 2021. "An Arrovian impossibility in combining ranking and evaluation," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 57(3), pages 535-555, October.
    4. Eric Kamwa, 2019. "Condorcet efficiency of the preference approval voting and the probability of selecting the Condorcet loser," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 87(3), pages 299-320, October.
    5. Regenwetter, Michel & Grofman, Bernard & Marley, A. A. J., 2002. "On the model dependence of majority preference relations reconstructed from ballot or survey data," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 451-466, July.
    6. Donald G. Saari, 2023. "Selecting a voting method: the case for the Borda count," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 357-366, September.
    7. Kirchgässner Gebhard, 2001. "Direkte Volksrechte und die Effizienz des demokratischen Staates," ORDO. Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, De Gruyter, vol. 52(1), pages 155-174, January.
    8. Kirchgaessner, Gebhard, 2015. "Direct Democracy: Chances and Challenges," Economics Working Paper Series 1513, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    9. Pierre Dehez & Victor Ginsburgh, 2020. "Approval voting and Shapley ranking," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 184(3), pages 415-428, September.
    10. Gebhard Kirchgässner, 2010. "Direkte Demokratie," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2010 2010-26, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen.
    11. Yakovlev, Pavel A. & Tosun, Mehmet S. & Lewis, William P., 2018. "The Fiscal Consequences of State Legislative Term Limits," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 48(3), January.
    12. Tomas J. McIntee, 2017. "A geometric model of sensitivity of multistage elections to change," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 49(1), pages 89-115, June.
    13. Salvatore Barbaro & Anna Specht, 2021. "Simple-majority rule and the size of the Bundestag," Working Papers 2105, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
    14. Steven Brams & Peter Fishburn, 2005. "Going from theory to practice: the mixed success of approval voting," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 25(2), pages 457-474, December.
    15. Donald Saari & Jill Newenhizen, 1988. "Is approval voting an ‘unmitigated evil’?: A response to Brams, Fishburn, and Merrill," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 59(2), pages 133-147, November.
    16. Bouton, Laurent & Castanheira, Micael & Llorente-Saguer, Aniol, 2016. "Divided majority and information aggregation: Theory and experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 114-128.
    17. Antoinette Baujard & Herrade Igersheim, 2007. "Expérimentation du vote par note et du vote par approbation lors de l'élection présidentielle française du 22 avril 2007," Post-Print halshs-00337290, HAL.
    18. Lars Feld, 2005. "The European constitution project from the perspective of constitutional political economy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 122(3), pages 417-448, March.
    19. Daniele Coen-Pirani & Michael Wooley, 2018. "Fiscal Centralization: Theory and Evidence from the Great Depression," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 39-61, May.
    20. Alós-Ferrer, Carlos & Buckenmaier, Johannes, 2019. "Strongly sincere best responses under approval voting and arbitrary preferences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 388-401.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Direct democracy; Approval voting; Democracy; Referendums; Electoral systems; Polarization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    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:homoec:v:35:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s41412-018-0069-4. 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.