Abstract
Until about a dozen years ago, the economic analysis of the relationship between political preferences and political demands was a rather straightforward, if dull, subject. The most common assumption was that the only political instrument available to citizens was the vote. Given this assumption, the analyst could express the outcome of the voting process in one of two ways. One possibility was to make the heroic assumptions necessary to obtain the median voter theorem, in which case, the political demands of the citizenry are simply the preferences of the median voter. The alternative was to make Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem in which case even though individual preferences are well ordered, no collective preference function exists. On either of these approaches, institutions such as interest groups, political parties, or the structures of political representation played no role in the analysis.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Bibliography
Alesina, Alberto. “Credibility and Policy Convergence in a Two-Party System with Rational Voters.”American Economic Review78 (1988): 796–805
Alesina, Alberto. “Political Cycles.” (1990) Paper delivered at the European Public Choice Society meetings, Beaune, France, April 3, 1991
Davis, O.A., Hinich, MJ., and Ordeshook, P.E. “An Expository Development of a Mathematical Model of the Electoral Process”American Political Science Review64 (1970): 426–48
Hibbs, Douglas A. “Political Parties and Macroeconomic Policy.”American Political Science Review76 (1977): 493–501
Hinich, Melvin, Ledyard, John and Ordeshook, Peter “Nonvoting and the Existence of Equilibrium under Majority Rule.”Journal of Economic Theory4 (1972): 144–53
Mueller, D. H.Public Choice II.New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. North, Douglas, and Weingast, Barry. “Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of the Institutions Governing Public Choice in 17th Century England.”Journal of Economic History(December 1989)
Persson, Torsten, and Svensson, Lars E. “Why a Stubborn Conservative Would Run a Deficit: Policy with Time-Inconsistent Preferences.”Quarterly Journal of Economics104 (1989): 325–345
Shepsle, Kenneth. “Institutional Arrangements and Equilibrium in Multi-dimensional Voting Models.”American Journal of Political Science23 (1979): 27–59
Tabellini, Guido. “The Politics of Intergenerational Redistribution.”Journal of Political Economy99 (1991): 335–357
Weingast, Barry, and Marshall, William. “The Industrial Organization of Congress”Journal of Political Economy96 (1988)
Wittman, Donald. “Parties As Utility Maximizes”American Political Science Review67 (1973)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1993 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Breton, A., Galeotti, G., Salmon, P., Wintrobe, R. (1993). Introduction. In: Breton, A., Galeotti, G., Salmon, P., Wintrobe, R. (eds) Preferences and Democracy. International Studies in Economics and Econometrics, vol 28. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2188-0_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2188-0_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-4969-6
Online ISBN: 978-94-011-2188-0
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive