CPO 2002 Introduction to Comparative Political Science Definitions Rationality as defined by political scientists they have complete and transitive preference orderings Condorcet s Paradox A set of rational individuals may not act rationally when they act as a group For example a group of judges are all rational but together they cannot make a choice Borda Count allows voters to list a complete preference ordering and then assigns a value to each item in the individuals preference ordering that reflects their preferences Single peaked preference ordering occurs when voters each have an ideal choice in the set and outcomes that are farther from their ideal choice are preferred less Median Voter Theorem If in a contest between two alternatives arrayed along a single policy dimension There are an odd number of voters with single peaked preferences who all vote sincerely then the proposal matching the ideal point of the median voter will defeat all other alternatives The Chaos Theorem IF there are two or more issue dimensions and three or more voters with preferences in the issue space who all vote sincerely then except in the case of a rare distribution of ideal points there will be no Condorcet winner Arrow s Theorem The pathologies of majority rule apply to any group decision procedure that meets some minimal standards of fairness Arrow s Fairness Conditions non dictatorship universal admissibility unanimity and independence from irrelevant alternatives Arrow proved that it is impossible to meet al 4 of these fairness conditions guaranteeing the group makes rational decisions and avoids the instability cause by group intransitivity Electoral systems majoritarian versus PR varieties of each Majoritarian 1 Single Member District Plurality System whoever has the most votes out of everyone running in the districts Advantages simplicity accountability and single party majority governments Disadvantages Unrepresentative outcomes disproportionate translation of votes into seats strategic voting and political fief 2 Alternative Vote Preference Voting and absolute majority and instant runoff vote Advantages Accountability votes opinions and competition for votes outside parties vase supporters Disadvantages rather complicated and possible lack of genuine majority 3 Two Round Systems It only has the potential for two or more rounds of elections Advantages More choices for voters than SMDP less strategic voting need for compromise and support from additional parties and less complicated Disadvantages costly and disproportionate translation of votes into seats 4 Single Nontransferable Vote Multimember Districts and the votes needed to win are 1 n 1 Advantages more proportional outcomes Disadvantages intraparty fighting electoral bribes fewer incentives to build coalitions and tradeoff between number of candidates and size of the electoral base 5 Block vote as many votes as there are seats and extremely disproportional outcomes either for a person or for a party CPO 2002 Introduction to Comparative Political Science Proportional Electoral Systems In multimember districts attempt to allocate seats according to number of votes received Advantadges proportional outcomes small parties can be represented more sincere voting and it works well in ethnically and religiously divided societies Disadvatadges they produce coalition governments less accountability small parties have a much larger role in policy weak link between constituents and their representatives List PR systems electoral formulas with quotas and divisors Hare quota with largest remainders Formula Q n Vd Md n They all contain an electoral threshold District magnitude the number of representatives that a district has Electoral threshold stipulation that a party must receive a certain percentage of votes either nationally or in a district to obtain any seats in a parliament Sincere vs strategic voting In sincere voting a person votes for the candidate which they feel represents them best In strategic voting though a person votes for someone that they feel that has a better chance of winning than they person who there beliefs align with For example in the recent Presidential election a sincere voter would have voted for Virigl Goode the constitutional party candidate but a strategic voter would have voted for Mitt Romney or Barack Obama because they would not want to throw there vote away with a sincere vote Devolution statutory granting of powers from the federal government of a sovereign state to government at a sub national level such as a city county or state Devolution differs from federalism in that it is a temporary exchange of power
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