IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/39091.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A rationale for intra-party democracy

Author

Listed:
  • Zudenkova, Galina

Abstract

This paper provides a rationale for intra-party democracy within a political agency model with moral hazard. The focus is on the party's internal procedures for policy determination. I show that democratizing those procedures benefits the party leadership, which seeks to maximize joint reelection chances of the party's incumbents. The reason is that under intra-party democracy, the voters adopt less demanding reappointment rules and reelect the party's incumbents more often than under leaders-dominated party structure. My results therefore indicate that democratizing policy determination processes within the party is in the interests of both the leadership and the ordinary members. The voters in turn are equally well off regardless of the party's internal procedure for policy determination.

Suggested Citation

  • Zudenkova, Galina, 2012. "A rationale for intra-party democracy," MPRA Paper 39091, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:39091
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/39091/1/MPRA_paper_39091.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gilat Levy, 2007. "Decision Making in Committees: Transparency, Reputation, and Voting Rules," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 150-168, March.
    2. John W. Patty, 2008. "Equilibrium Party Government," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(3), pages 636-655, July.
    3. Jackson, Matthew O. & Mathevet, Laurent & Mattes, Kyle, 2007. "Nomination Processes and Policy Outcomes," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 2(1), pages 67-92, March.
    4. Micael Castanheira & Benoît Crutzen & Nicolas Sahuguet, 2010. "The Impact of Party Organization on Electoral Outcomes," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 61(4), pages 677-695.
    5. Michels, Robert, 1915. "Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number michels1915.
    6. Feddersen, Timothy & Pesendorfer, Wolfgang, 1998. "Convicting the Innocent: The Inferiority of Unanimous Jury Verdicts under Strategic Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 92(1), pages 23-35, March.
    7. Josep Colomer, 2005. "Policy making in divided government: A pivotal actors model with party discipline," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 125(3), pages 247-269, December.
    8. Austen-Smith, David & Banks, Jeffrey S., 1996. "Information Aggregation, Rationality, and the Condorcet Jury Theorem," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 90(1), pages 34-45, March.
    9. Guillaume R. Fréchette & Francois Maniquet & Massimo Morelli, 2008. "Incumbents' Interests and Gender Quotas," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(4), pages 891-909, October.
    10. Torsten Persson & Gérard Roland & Guido Tabellini, 1997. "Separation of Powers and Political Accountability," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1163-1202.
    11. Adam Meirowitz, 2005. "Informational Party Primaries and Strategic Ambiguity," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 17(1), pages 107-136, January.
    12. Diermeier, Daniel & Feddersen, Timothy J., 1998. "Cohesion in Legislatures and the Vote of Confidence Procedure," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 92(3), pages 611-621, September.
    13. Bauke Visser & Otto H. Swank, 2007. "On Committees of Experts," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(1), pages 337-372.
    14. Barnett,William A. & Schofield,Norman & Hinich,Melvin (ed.), 1993. "Political Economy: Institutions, Competition and Representation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521428316, September.
    15. Josep M. Colomer, 2005. "Policy making in divided government. A pivotal actors model with party discipline," Economics Working Papers 817, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    16. John Ferejohn, 1986. "Incumbent performance and electoral control," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 5-25, January.
    17. Nicola Persico, 2004. "Committee Design with Endogenous Information," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(1), pages 165-191.
    18. Robert Barro, 1973. "The control of politicians: An economic model," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 19-42, March.
    19. Iaryczower, Matias, 2008. "Contestable Leadership: Party Leaders as Principals and Agents," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 3(3), pages 203-225, October.
    20. Eguia, Jon X., 2011. "Voting blocs, party discipline and party formation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 111-135, September.
    21. Diermeier, Daniel & Feddersen, Timothy J., 1998. "Comparing constitutions:: Cohesion and distribution in legislatures," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 665-672, May.
    22. Barnett,William A. & Schofield,Norman & Hinich,Melvin (ed.), 1993. "Political Economy: Institutions, Competition and Representation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521417815, September.
    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. Zudenkova, Galina, 2011. "A Model of Party Discipline in a Congress," Working Papers 2072/151813, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    2. Curto-Grau, Marta & Zudenkova, Galina, 2018. "Party discipline and government spending: Theory and evidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 139-152.
    3. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    4. Mattozzi, Andrea & Merlo, Antonio, 2008. "Political careers or career politicians?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 597-608, April.
    5. Antonio Merlo, 2005. "Whither Political Economy? Theories, Facts and Issues," PIER Working Paper Archive 05-033, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 01 Dec 2005.
    6. Zudenkova, Galina, 2011. "A political agency model of coattail voting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(11), pages 1652-1660.
    7. Galina Zudenkova, 2015. "Political cronyism," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 44(3), pages 473-492, March.
    8. Breitmoser, Yves & Valasek, Justin, 2017. "A rationale for unanimity in committees," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Economics of Change SP II 2017-308, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    9. Zudenkova, Galina, 2011. "Cronyism in Business, Public Sector and Politics," MPRA Paper 30231, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Iaryczower, Matias & Lewis, Garrett & Shum, Matthew, 2013. "To elect or to appoint? Bias, information, and responsiveness of bureaucrats and politicians," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 230-244.
    11. Carrillo, Juan D. & Mariotti, Thomas, 2001. "Electoral competition and politician turnover," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 1-25, January.
    12. 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.
    13. Archishman Chakraborty & Rick Harbaugh, 2010. "Persuasion by Cheap Talk," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2361-2382, December.
      • Archishman Chakraborty & Rick Harbaugh, 2006. "Persuasion by Cheap Talk," Working Papers 2006-10, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy, revised Oct 2009.
    14. Aidt, Toke S. & Magris, Francesco, 2006. "Capital taxation and electoral accountability," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 277-291, June.
    15. Claudio Ferraz & Frederico Finan, 2011. "Electoral Accountability and Corruption: Evidence from the Audits of Local Governments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1274-1311, June.
    16. Áron Kiss, 2009. "Coalition politics and accountability," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 413-428, June.
    17. Nobuhiro Mizuno & Ryosuke Okazawa, 2022. "Why do voters elect less qualified candidates?," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 34(3), pages 443-477, July.
    18. Volker Hahn, 2017. "On the drawbacks of large committees," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 46(2), pages 563-582, May.
    19. James E. Alt & Robert C. Lowry, 2010. "Transparency and Accountability: Empirical Results for Us States," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 22(4), pages 379-406, October.
    20. Keiichi Morimoto, 2021. "Information Use and the Condorcet Jury Theorem," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-22, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Intra-party democracy; Leaders-dominated party; Policy determination; Party internal structure; Political agency; Moral hazard;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

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

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:39091. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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.