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Rationality as defined by political scientists an actor is rational when she processes a complete and transitive preference ordering over a source of outcomes o Complete preference ordering prefers x to y or y to x or is indifferent Strictly or weakly o Transitive preference ordering if x more than y and y more than z then x more than z Condorcet s Paradox o Shows that a group composed of individuals with rational preferences doesn t necessarily have rational preferences as a collectivity individual rationality isn t sufficient to ensure group rationality o Cyclical majority o Condorcet winner an option is a winner if it beats all other options in a series of pair wise contests o Round Robin tournament when making group decisions each alternative against each alternative in a set of pairwise votes Single peaked preference ordering characterized by the utlity function that reaches a maximum t some point and slopes away from this maximum on either side such that a movement away from the max never raises the actors utility o Utility function a numerical scale in which higher numbers stand for higher positions in an individuals preference ordering o Median Voter Theorem MTV states that no alternative can beat one preferred by the median voter in pair wise majority rule elections if the of voter is odd voter preferences are single peaked over a single policy dimension and voters vote sincerely o Median voter the individual who has half the voters at his position and to the right or to the left o Can help Condorcet paradox by ruling certain preferences out of bounds and reducing the policy space to a single issue dimension o Indifference curve on a curve that shows the preferences of what they are getting The curve is a set of points such that an individual is indifferent between any two points in the set o Winset of some alternative of z is the set of alternatives that will defeat z in a pair wise contest if everyone votes sincerely according to whatever voting rules are being used o Chaos Theorem if there are two or more issue dimensions and 3 or more voters with preferences in the issue space who all vote sincerely then except in the case of rare distribution of ideal points there will be no Condorcet winner Arrow s Fairness Conditions fairness conditions that all decision making processes should meet o Non Dictatorship D o Universal Admissibility u there must be no individual who fully determines the outcome of the group decision making process in disregard of the preferences of the other group members a professor parent committee chair a literal dictator rational preference ordering over the available alternatives You cant artificially restrict what people can prefer group prefer x to y then the group preferences must reflect a preference for x to y as well should be unperturbed by changes in the rankings of irrelevant states that individuals can adopt any states that if all individuals in a states that group choice o Independence from Irrelevant Alternatives I o Unanimity o Pareto Optimality P Arrows Theorem every decision making process will violate one of arrows fairness conditions if it is to guarantee group transitivity and hence stable outcomes o There exists no mechanism for translating the preferences of rational individuals into a coherent group preference that simultaneously and necessarily satisfies the fairness conditions D U P I o Institutional trilemma between 1 Stable outcomes 2 Universal admissibility 3 Non dictatorship o Can only choose 2 out of the 3 Electoral systems majoritarian versus PR varieties of each District magnitude Electoral Thresholds the minimum of votes needed by a party to gain representation o Formal threshold legally imposed o Natural threshold mathematical property of the electoral system o Cause disproportional outcomes waste votes o Help stop party fragmentation Examples of allocating seats under different electoral rules Sincere vs strategic voting o Strategic or sophisticated vote wen an individual votes in favor of a less preferred option because she believes doing so will ultimately produce a more preferred outcome o Sincere voting a vote for an individual most preferred option Devolution occurs when an unitary state grants powers to subnational governments but retains the right to unilaterally recall or reshape those powers Can be compared to Federalism Example is India Type of party systems o Nonpartisan democracy has no official political parties o Single party system one which only one political party is legally allowed to hold power o One party dominate system one which multiple parties may legally operate but in which only one particular party has a realistic chance of gaining power o Two party system one which only 2 major political parties have a realistic chance of holding power o Multiparty system which more than 2 parties have a realistic chance of gaining power Effective number of parties o used to count political parties A measure that captures both the o 1 number of parties and the size of parties in a country v 2 v 2 v 2 v 2 o If all 4 parties received 23 of the vote then it would look like this o 1 1 4 25 2 25 2 25 2 25 2 0 25 Politicized Cleavages o If the cleavage is politicized or salient o An attribute a characteristic that qualifies an individual for membership in an identity category has different values and is given and self evident Socially constructed o How attributes are mapped into identity categories depends on o Cross cutting attributes uncorrelated attributes o Reinforcing attributes correlating attributes For example all the northerners speak Dutch Southerners speak French o Supported by Malawi and Zambia example o Chewas and Timbukas are enemies in Malawi Large percentage of overall population o Political allies in Zambia Small percentage of overall population Have to form a political coalition Cleavage is between N E S W o They both use SMDP Social Cleavages and Electoral Institution o Social Cleavages o Urban cleavage rural agr vs city dwellers o The confessional cleavage religious o The Secular Clerical Cleavage separation of church and state o The class cleavage labors and capitalists Wealth redistribution o Post materialist cleavage freezing hypothesis o Ethnic and linguistic cleavages o Electoral Institutions determine whether the latent demand for representation actually leads to a political party o Nonproportional electoral systems make the increasing number of social cleavages have less an effect


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FSU CPO 2002 - Rationality

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