Preferences and Democracy

1. Front Matter

   Pages I-IX

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2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Albert Breton, Gianluigi Galeotti, Pierre Salmon, Ronald Wintrobe

      Pages 1-10

3. Unsatisfied Political Demands

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 11-11

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   2. Unpopular Policies and the Theory of Representative Democracy

      • Pierre Salmon

      Pages 13-39

   3. Equilibrium Political Inaction in a Democracy

      • Peter Howitt, Ronald Wintrobe

      Pages 41-64

4. Bridges Between Demand and Supply

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 65-65

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   2. A Theory of Demand for Governmentally Supplied Goods and Services

      • Albert Breton

      Pages 67-100

   3. Organized Groups and the (Mis?)Transmission of Public Preferences

      • R. A. Young

      Pages 101-133

   4. Public Goods Provision Institutions

      • Marc Bilodeau

      Pages 135-155

5. Equilibrium Political Platforms: Convergence and Divergence

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 157-157

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   2. The Silent Revolution of Probabilistic Voting

      • Jean-Dominique Lafay

      Pages 159-191

   3. Pivotal Voters and Political Equilibria

      • Gianluigi Galeotti

      Pages 193-213

   4. Political Exchange and the Allocation of Surplus: A Model of Two-Party Competition

      • Michele Grillo, Michele Polo

      Pages 215-244

6. The Behaviour of Political Parties

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 245-245

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   2. Fourteen Ways to Credibly Escape a Credible Commitment (and Still Get Re-Elected)

      • Ronald Wintrobe

      Pages 247-264

   3. Issues and Party Alignments: A Review with Canadian Examples

      • Richard Johnston

      Pages 265-286

7. Redistribution

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 287-287

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   2. The Demand for the Public Sector in the Rich Welfare State of Denmark: Two Polls from 1990

      • Peter Nannestad, Martin Paldam

      Pages 289-327

   3. Voting Rights and the Demand for Public Expenditure. An Analysis of the redistributive impact of universal suffrage

      • Giorgio Brosio, Carla Marchese

      Pages 329-349

   4. Coercive Redistribution and the Franchise: A Preliminary Investigation Using Computable General Equilibrium Modelling

      • Stanley L. Winer, Thomas Rutherford

      Pages 351-375

I. 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 ofpolitical representation played no role in the analysis. The work of "Chicago" scholars especially George Stigler, Gary Becker and Sam Peltzman took a different approach and emphasized the importanceoforganizationinmakingpoliticaldemandseffective, shifting thefocus from voting topolitical "pressure" byinterestgroups. However, in these models, voting as an instrument of political action simply disappears and the relationship between interest group pressures and electoral processes has never been clarified.

• Institution
• Political Science
• Revolution
• economics
• equilibrium
• general equilibrium
• modeling
• welfare

• University of Toronto, Canada

  Albert Breton

• University of Perugia, Italy

  Gianluigi Galeotti

• University of Bourgogne, France

  Pierre Salmon

• University of Western Ontario, Canada

  Ronald Wintrobe

Policies and ethics