Journal of Theoretical Politics

Publisher:: Sage Publications, Inc.
Publication date:: 2021-09-06

ISBN:: 0951-6298

Issue Number

No. 36-2, April 2024

Latest documents

Justice, inclusion, and incentives
How does justice affect individual incentives and efficiency in a political economy? We show that elementary principles of distributive justice guarantee the existence of a self-enforcing contract whereby agents non-cooperatively choose their inputs and derive utility from their pay. Chief among these principles is that your pay should not depend on your name, and a more productive individual should not earn less. We generalize our analysis to incorporate inclusivity, ensuring basic pay to unproductive agents, implemented through progressive taxation and redistribution. Our findings show that without redistribution, any self-enforcing agreement may be inefficient, but a minimal level of redistribution guarantees the existence of an efficient agreement. Our model has several applications and interpretations. In addition to highlighting the structure of economies and organizations in which fairness and efficiency are compatible, we develop an application to the formation of rent-seeking political alliances under the threat of fake news.
A comment on Powell and formal models of power sharing *
Ruling elites commonly concede institutional reforms such as expanding the franchise. In existing models, sharing power in this manner enables ruling elites to credibly commit to perpetual redistribution. In ‘Power Sharing with Weak Institutions,’ Powell (2024) explains why the commitment problem runs deeper: When institutions are weak, elites are likely to block the implementation of promised institutional concessions. I provide new insights into three foundational premises of Powell (2024) and related models. First, I identify a necessary condition for a common result: Ruling elites always minimize permanent power-sharing concessions vis-à-vis temporary concessions, subject to preventing revolt. However, unless reforming institutions is somehow costly, these two tools are perfect substitutes. Second, I discuss how to conceptualize institutional strength within this class of models. Third, in weak institutional environments, I suggest how scholars can model credible commitments to share power or democratize.
Strategic avoidance and rulemaking procedures
Informal, ‘notice-and-comment’, rulemaking is the prototypical mechanism employed by US regulators. However, agencies frequently claim their actions exempt from the process, and courts typically agree. Agencies thus face an important strategic choice between informal rulemaking and avoidance. To study this choice, we analyze a model of rulemaking with exemption and empirically analyze agency avoidance. Our model implies that more biased agencies engage in less avoidance, as they face more skepticism from the courts and, thus, require support from group comments to have their rules upheld. Empirically, we find support for this prediction. As for policy implications, we show it is more beneficial to allow exemptions when the agency is more biased.
A new formal model analysis of deterrent to brinkmanship and the causes of the armament dilemma
How close does a nation come to the brink of war with an opponent during the process of crisis bargaining? The present study constructs a new formal model focused on a challenger’s incentive to intensify military provocations against a defender that involve a trade-off between securing a more profitable bargaining outcome and increasing the risk of accidental war. This model identifies the conditions under which the defender’s threat of military coercion effectively deters the challenger from engaging in his payoff-maximizing level of provocations. The numerical simulations suggest that a military buildup by a nation can cause counterintuitive results, namely, the armament dilemma, depending on the balance of the marginal benefits and costs for participants and the effectiveness of deterrence. Meanwhile, a state’s military buildup always strengthens its own bargaining power relative to its opponent’s regardless of the occurrence of this dilemma; that is, the paradox of power does not arise.
Power sharing with weak institutions ∗
Democratic transitions, franchise extensions, and civil war settlements can often be seen as power-sharing agreements in which opposing factions try to use institutional structures to ‘lock in’ the terms of a settlement. But the commitment power inherent in institutions varies. When the institutional environment is weak and credibility is low, it is difficult for a powerful elite to tie its hands and give up power. This article studies a window-of-opportunity model in which an enfranchised elite faces a periodic threat. Institutional weakness is parameterized in terms of the elite’s marginal return to trying to undermine a power-sharing agreement. The analysis shows that (i) bargaining breaks down if the overall institutional environment is too weak and why it does; (ii) equilibrium agreements share more power with the opposition when the institutional environment is weak; (iii) there is a non-monotonic relation between power sharing and how often the opposition poses a threat; and (iv) power sharing is path dependent.
Tell me the truth? Dictatorship and the commitment to media freedom
The emerging political economy literature on dictatorial media politics rationalizes the cross-country variation in media freedom by dictators’ demand for truthful information. Since a dictator can always punish the media for their truth-telling ex post, concerns of being punished could induce self-censorship and undermine the dictator’s promise to media freedom. We study a formal model that brings the dictator’s commitment problem to the fore, and characterize situations in which the commitment problem is especially severe. Our analysis suggests that neglecting self-censorship would lead to underestimating the amount of missing information in autocracies as well as overestimating the autocrats’ level of tolerance for criticisms and authoritarian responsiveness. Based on the comparative statics, we contend that the variation in media outlets’ quality and penetration can be leveraged to recover missing information due to self-censorship.
Law enforcement and political misinformation
Why is criminal law enforcement increasingly punitive, despite that the situation has improved for decades? This paper investigates this question from the perspective of political misinformation. To this end, we develop a law enforcement model with political competition and examine how political parties’ campaigns affect voters’ perceptions of crime and equilibrium law enforcement policy. In a political campaign stage, we show that one political party has an incentive to overstate the severity of crime, while the other party has an incentive to correct voters’ beliefs. However, although the two parties attempt to change voters’ beliefs in opposite directions, we find that the total effect of a political campaign is more likely to drive both parties’ policies in a harsh direction.
Collective agency and positive political theory
Positive political theorists typically deny the possibility of collective agents by understanding aggregation problems to imply that groups are not rational decision-makers. This view contrasts with List and Pettit’s view that such problems actually imply the necessity of accounting for collective agents in explanations of group behaviour. In this paper, I explore these conflicting views and ask whether positive political theorists should alter their individualist analyses of groups like legislatures, political parties, and constituent assemblies. I show how we fail to appreciate the significance of strategic voting and agenda control by treating groups as agents. I, therefore, conclude that positive political theorists should cling to their individualist approach and maintain that groups are not agents.
Decentralised information transmission in the shadow of conflict
Miscalculations due to lack of information are often seen as one of the main causes of war. Yet, a privately informed country has multiple channels to share information and avoid a costly conflict. I study three ways information can be transmitted – sunk cost signals, audience costs, and military build-up. In a fully decentralised setting, where the uninformed country can perfectly adjust its response to the information it learns, the three channels produce very different outcomes. Sunk cost signals never transmit any information. Information transmission is possible with audience costs when the uninformed country sufficiently values peace. With military build-up, information transmission occurs by accident. It is a by-product of the privately informed country’s attempt to increase its strength. I contrast these findings with the case of a constrained uninformed country that can only choose between a limited number of offers.
Zone defense: Why liberal cities build too few homes
In this article, I investigate a puzzling feature of American urban politics: cities with more liberal residents tend to enact more restrictive zoning policies and permit fewer new housing units each year than similar conservative cities. To help explain this puzzle, I develop a formal model in which local governments regulate the size of their population to balance the benefits of agglomeration with the costs of congestion. To defend against congestion externalities imposed by new residents, cities enact zoning policies that undersupply housing relative to the social optimum. In liberal cities, where residents value the benefits of agglomeration the most, this undersupply of housing is the most severe.