An Expository Development of a Mathematical Model of the Electoral Process
- 1 June 1970
- journal article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in American Political Science Review
- Vol. 64 (2), 426-448
- https://doi.org/10.2307/1953842
Abstract
The fundamental process of politics is the aggregation of citizens' preferences into a collective—a social—choice. We develop, interpret, and explain non-technically in this expository essay the definitions, assumptions, and theorems of a mathematical model of one aggregative mechanism—the electoral process. This mechanism is conceptualized here as a multidimensional model of spatial competition in which competition consists of candidates affecting turnout and the electorate's perception of each candidate's positions, and in which the social choice is a policy package which the victorious candidate advocates.This approach, inaugurated by Downs's An Economic Theory of Democracy, and falling under the general rubric “spatial models of party competition,” has been scrutinized, criticized, and reformulated. To clarify the accomplishments of this formulation we identify and discuss in section 2 the general democratic problem of ascertaining a social preference. We review critically in section 3 the definitions and assumptions of our model. We consider in sections 4 and 5 the logic of a competitive electoral equilibrium. We assume in section 4 that the electorate's preferences can be summarized and represented by a single function; the analysis in section 5 pertains to competition between two organizational structures or two opposed ideologies (i.e., when two functions are required to summarize and represent the electorate's preference). Finally, we suggest in section 6 a conceptualization of electoral processes which facilitates extending and empirically testing our model.Keywords
This publication has 9 references indexed in Scilit:
- The Study of Coalition BehaviorThe Western Political Quarterly, 1971
- Toward a Mathematics of Politics, by Gordon TullockPolitical Science Quarterly, 1970
- Extensions to a Model of the Electoral Process and Implications for the Theory of Responsible PartiesMidwest Journal of Political Science, 1970
- Abstentions and equilibrium in the electoral processPublic Choice, 1969
- On the power and importance of the mean preference in a mathematical model of democratic choicePublic Choice, 1968
- Public Finance in Democratic Process. Fiscal Institutions and Individual Choice.The Economic Journal, 1968
- The General Irrelevance of the General Impossibility TheoremThe Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1967
- The Responsible ElectoratePublished by Harvard University Press ,1966
- Candidates, Issues and Strategies.Midwest Journal of Political Science, 1966