Representative Democracy in the USA

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Representative Democracy in the USA

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Last time

• Representative Democracy- voters choose
  representatives to act on their behalf in public
  policy debate.
• Median Voter Theorem- in a two-party system, if
  candidates seek to maximize votes, policy
  converges to median voter.
• We also noted that politicians may have other
  objectives than simply maximizing votes. This
  leads to credibility problems for candidates.

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Today

• What role do elections serve in a representative
  democracy?
• Discipline (hold politicians accountable for
  behavior)
• Selection (allow voters to choose candidates that
  they believe to be most competent)

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Discipline role of elections

• Consider an incumbent, who is making a decision
  on the level of fireworks provision.
• Society has its own preferences r. At this
  quantity, there is a total optimal tax-bill T
• Incumbent politician may have reasons not to
  choose r and T. For instance, he may be taking
  a bribe from the fireworks company to choose a
  higher level of fireworks. Also, he may want to
  choose some tax level higher than T, and pocket
  the extra money. This politician is rent-seeking.

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Elections discipline incumbent

• Remember that there is some benefit to being in
  office (prestige, power, etc.)
• As such, an incumbent who wants to be reelected
  will not deviate too largely from the
  electorates most preferred r and T. If he does
  so, the voting public will not reelect him.
• So even if the politician is rent-seeking, he
  will limit the level of rents that he seeks.

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Selection role

• Selection role of elections is somewhat similar
  to discipline role. However, here we refer to the
  fact that some politicians may not have the
  ability to do the job, even if they are not
  motivated to seek rents.
• Elections allow voters to remove incompetent
  representatives.

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Term limits

• Incumbents in most legislative bodies who seek
  reelection win over 90 of the time.
• This has led to concerns about career politicians
  (Ted Kennedy, Strom Thurmond, etc) who wield
  enormous power, with little threat of being voted
  out. This limits the power of citizens in
  democracy.
• Term limits have been offered as a solution to
  career politicians.

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Are term limits a good idea?

• In a seniority based system (such as in the US
  Congress), term limits would prevent a small
  number of people from keeping control over
  specific committees for long periods of time.
• This might lessen the problem of agenda
  manipulation in congressional committees, by
  limiting the amount of time that any one
  individual can set the agenda as committee chair.

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Continued

• But, term limits may also have drawbacks.
• Recall the discipline role of elections.
• The desire to be reelected limits the
  rent-seeking behaviors of politicians,
  disciplining their choices.
• Term limits remove the disciplinary process.

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Lets return to our previous example

• Assume the incumbent politician is in his last
  term in office.
• He is still choosing the tax bill and the level
  of provision in his district.
• He now has no incentive to behave, so he may
  very well take a bribe offered by the fireworks
  company, or he may choose a large tax bill and
  small (or no) provision of fireworks.

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So, term limits have negative effects, too.

• In reality, even an incumbent who is up against
  term limit has some incentive to behave. (Party
  loyalty, future career concerns, etc.)
• Still, we do notice behavior from lame-duck
  politicians that appears to stem from the voters
  inability to discipline the politician.
• When Clinton left office in 2000 (after Gores
  loss), he issued several pardons in his last few
  days. Staffers stole items from White House, (ie.
  took the w keys from keyboards). Bush (senior)
  did the same.

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A Few Thoughts on Voter Participation

• Weve all heard someone wonder aloud about weak
  voter turnout in recent elections.
• Implicit in such concerns is the belief that
  everybody should vote.
• A frequently posed question is Why dont people
  vote?

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Voter Turnout 1994-2000 (Census)
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Voter Participation

• Often, pundits blame this on voters feeling
  alienated and disenfranchised in the democratic
  process.
• Additionally, for large elections, the
  probability that your vote will be the deciding
  one is incredibly small (though larger if you
  live in Florida)
• These points (the last one in particular) seem to
  answer our previous question, but lead to another

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Why do people vote?

• There is a cost to voting specifically the time
  it takes to go to the polling station, wait in
  line, and cast your vote
• There is an additional cost to learning about the
  candidates and issues.
• The expected direct benefit (the odds of making a
  difference) are small.
• So the real question is not so much why dont
  people vote as why do they.

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Voter Turnout

• Community Pressure- people may vote because they
  belong to a group that looks unfavorably on those
  that dont vote. Unions are a great example of
  this.
• Warm Glow- Some people may feel that voting is
  the right thing to do, or may get a sense of
  civic pride from doing their duty.
• Some people vote to attempt to get small party
  candidates funded Federally. Candidates need 5
  of vote to receive funding.