Yeah, this seems like an important structure to think about. What stops many democracies from sliding into a ton of party favoritism? What allows this in other cases?
The standard story as I see it is that re-election worries prevent this. Reward the minority, and the majority will turn against you. What stops this in Turkey? I guess there are lots of ways to disenfranchise people.
In a popular election, you’d love to promise the world to 51% at the expense of the 49%. Why isn’t this more common?
Once in power, you’d love to disenfranchise more people so that you can have a smaller base (which you can promise even more to, while taking even more for yourself). Why isn’t this more common?
Hungary has gerrymandering and other voter suppression stuff, but primarily it has divided opposition. The party in power has 1⁄3, but the other 2⁄3 is split 4 ways, plus minor parties. One particularly good election where they got ~1/2 the vote due to temporary members let them claim a supermajority of legislative seats, and then use that supermajority to change the rules so that any party with a core 30% level would retain majority power indefinitely (plus putting in party appartchiks in lots of governmental and judicial roles). If the opposition was fully unified, they could take back control, theoretically, but the media/bureaucratic control lets them work against that happening.
Democracies have laws, norms, and systems that prevent the elected government from directly rewarding their voters. They have to spread the rewards more generally (eg even if my company didn’t support you, I still get to bid on government contracts. Often there is a bureaucracy and military that are held independent of political parties, and demand a large share of the “rewards” leaving not enough $ left to bribe 51% of the electorate.
Some people value equality/fairness as a terminal value. If you have (and/or create via childhood messeging) a large enough fraction of your population with that value, one of the “rewards” you can hand out is even-handed policies that spread the $ rewards out (in the form of public goods / programs), which that group will vote for over their own selfish enrichment.
In a popular election, you’d love to promise the world to 51% at the expense of the 49%. Why isn’t this more common?
I think this focus on 100% mistakes a lot of what political support is about. US presidential candiates spent a lot time campaigning in swing states and not in California because there little expected gain from campainging in Calinfornia.
It’s very wasteful for any US presidential candidate to promise anything to Californians.
A lot of people also don’t form their own opinions but take their opinions from thought leaders (which can be promised rewards) or through political messenging (which you buy with the campaign donations that you exchange for rewards).
I also don’t know what N% support literally means, in selectorate theory (the theory expounded by Dictator’s Handbook).
In a plurality vote, N% support means that percent of people voted for you. This definition is also used even when systems like the electoral college, gerrymandering, etc are in place, since these are seen as methods of disenfranchising some people.
But voting for a candidate doesn’t mean you like them very much! Particularly in a plurality system!
In an approval voting system, you similarly take “voted for that person” as “support”. This is plausibly more meaningful than “support” in a plurality vote. But it is also very different, since you support more than one candidate.
In other systems such as IRV and score voting ant STAR voting and so on, it gets increasingly murky.
I think it’s very misleading to see voting system that are prescriptive with the same lense as selectorate theory that tries to be descriptive.
In Germany where I’m from, to become a parliamentarian the selectorate are your fellow party members. If you are liked by your fellow party members you get a place high up in the list and/or a district you are likely to win. You do things that advance the agenda of your party to win favor with your fellow party members.
Then at an election voters decide about which agenda of which parties gets how much influence.
In the US you need donors to run a successful campaign to be elected as congressman so donors are central to the selectorate. Both the donors that give you money and also the donors that would fund a possible primary challenge against you.
If nobody knows their congressman and what good the congressmen did for their district expect those who are highly engaged and can drive campaign donations, that small class of people is effectively the selectorate
First off, thank you very much for this post. I’ve been kicking around similar thoughts on these three books and am loving the discussion.
In a popular election, you’d love to promise the world to 51% at the expense of the 49%. Why isn’t this more common?
Define “more common” It definitely isn’t rare in the US. Ending exemptions for state taxes hurts blue states and helps red states. Forgiving student loans helps liberal college educated voters at expense of no college conservative voters.
Once in power, you’d love to disenfranchise more people so that you can have a smaller base (which you can promise even more to, while taking even more for yourself). Why isn’t this more common?
Again, accusations at least of disenfranchisement are very common in US. The debate over voter ID is primarily a debate about who would be disenfranchised by enacting them (“legit voters” having their vote cancelled by illegit voters or “legit voters” not able to vote at all cause the requirements are too strict). DC and Puerto Rico statehood are attempts to expand the franchise in a way that makes it easier for liberals to gain control of Senate and Presidency. Calls to end Electoral College are about disenfranchising rural areas in favor of urban areas (often very explicitly).
Yeah, this seems like an important structure to think about. What stops many democracies from sliding into a ton of party favoritism? What allows this in other cases?
The standard story as I see it is that re-election worries prevent this. Reward the minority, and the majority will turn against you. What stops this in Turkey? I guess there are lots of ways to disenfranchise people.
In a popular election, you’d love to promise the world to 51% at the expense of the 49%. Why isn’t this more common?
Once in power, you’d love to disenfranchise more people so that you can have a smaller base (which you can promise even more to, while taking even more for yourself). Why isn’t this more common?
Why isn’t dictatorship the only attractor?
Hungary has gerrymandering and other voter suppression stuff, but primarily it has divided opposition. The party in power has 1⁄3, but the other 2⁄3 is split 4 ways, plus minor parties. One particularly good election where they got ~1/2 the vote due to temporary members let them claim a supermajority of legislative seats, and then use that supermajority to change the rules so that any party with a core 30% level would retain majority power indefinitely (plus putting in party appartchiks in lots of governmental and judicial roles). If the opposition was fully unified, they could take back control, theoretically, but the media/bureaucratic control lets them work against that happening.
Democracies have laws, norms, and systems that prevent the elected government from directly rewarding their voters. They have to spread the rewards more generally (eg even if my company didn’t support you, I still get to bid on government contracts. Often there is a bureaucracy and military that are held independent of political parties, and demand a large share of the “rewards” leaving not enough $ left to bribe 51% of the electorate.
Some people value equality/fairness as a terminal value. If you have (and/or create via childhood messeging) a large enough fraction of your population with that value, one of the “rewards” you can hand out is even-handed policies that spread the $ rewards out (in the form of public goods / programs), which that group will vote for over their own selfish enrichment.
I think this focus on 100% mistakes a lot of what political support is about. US presidential candiates spent a lot time campaigning in swing states and not in California because there little expected gain from campainging in Calinfornia.
It’s very wasteful for any US presidential candidate to promise anything to Californians.
A lot of people also don’t form their own opinions but take their opinions from thought leaders (which can be promised rewards) or through political messenging (which you buy with the campaign donations that you exchange for rewards).
I agree.
I also don’t know what N% support literally means, in selectorate theory (the theory expounded by Dictator’s Handbook).
In a plurality vote, N% support means that percent of people voted for you. This definition is also used even when systems like the electoral college, gerrymandering, etc are in place, since these are seen as methods of disenfranchising some people.
But voting for a candidate doesn’t mean you like them very much! Particularly in a plurality system!
In an approval voting system, you similarly take “voted for that person” as “support”. This is plausibly more meaningful than “support” in a plurality vote. But it is also very different, since you support more than one candidate.
In other systems such as IRV and score voting ant STAR voting and so on, it gets increasingly murky.
I think it’s very misleading to see voting system that are prescriptive with the same lense as selectorate theory that tries to be descriptive.
In Germany where I’m from, to become a parliamentarian the selectorate are your fellow party members. If you are liked by your fellow party members you get a place high up in the list and/or a district you are likely to win. You do things that advance the agenda of your party to win favor with your fellow party members.
Then at an election voters decide about which agenda of which parties gets how much influence.
In the US you need donors to run a successful campaign to be elected as congressman so donors are central to the selectorate. Both the donors that give you money and also the donors that would fund a possible primary challenge against you.
If nobody knows their congressman and what good the congressmen did for their district expect those who are highly engaged and can drive campaign donations, that small class of people is effectively the selectorate
First off, thank you very much for this post. I’ve been kicking around similar thoughts on these three books and am loving the discussion.
Define “more common” It definitely isn’t rare in the US. Ending exemptions for state taxes hurts blue states and helps red states. Forgiving student loans helps liberal college educated voters at expense of no college conservative voters.
Again, accusations at least of disenfranchisement are very common in US. The debate over voter ID is primarily a debate about who would be disenfranchised by enacting them (“legit voters” having their vote cancelled by illegit voters or “legit voters” not able to vote at all cause the requirements are too strict). DC and Puerto Rico statehood are attempts to expand the franchise in a way that makes it easier for liberals to gain control of Senate and Presidency. Calls to end Electoral College are about disenfranchising rural areas in favor of urban areas (often very explicitly).