Condorcet's Pardox
If I prefer A over B, and B over C, I prefer A over C.
What are transitive preferences?
It's where majority of voters/members are situated in the ideological spectrum, according to Downs.
What is the middle?
This institutional design in the Senate gives power to the minority power, allowing delay of bills.
What is the filibuster?
This is how we can solve the issue of inattentive publics.
What is incentives for voting or political participation?
...or any other ideas for reforms.
This model, introduced by Krehbiel, puts players on an ideological continuum where certain players have a larger influence than others when making policy.
What is the pivotal politics model?
When this happens, we do not know if we are seeing the preferences of the entire group, or just one person.
What happens when we solve Condorcet paradox by empowering one person?
The median voter theorem helps explain this concept: the idea that government policies should reflect and respond to the preferences of the people.
What is representation?
The major concern from James Madison in Federalist 51.
What is Tyranny of the Majority?
These are the common policy implications for increased representation.
What is bad policy?
It is measured by how well a member of Congress represents their individual district.
What is dyadic representation?
This is how you can solve Condorcet's paradox.
Why would you give one person more power in Congress?
You do this to capture 51+% of the vote, and ensure passage of your bill, or to win reelection.
Why do members or parties move toward the middle?
This institutional design from the Founders helps to limit the Tyranny of the Majority.
What is the bicameral design of Congress?
Contradictory to the median voter theorem, it is when voters chose the candidate who will push policy to their ideal point rather than who is closer to the ideal point.
What is directional voting?
By limiting the power of the majority and its secondary effects, this relationship between members and their constituents is limited.
What is representation?
The more you add, the more unstable the decisions become, according to Condorcet.
What are choices and actors?
This is a limitation to the theory in present-day.
How is the theory affected by polarization?
What about members who do not follow through on their campaign promises?
... or any other limitation to the theory.
While most complain about the job performance of Congress, the founders intended it to act this way.
What is the slow speed of Congress?
Due to the public's inattentiveness to politics, these rates are very high in Congress?
What is reelection?
It dictates that once the median proposal has been adopted, it cannot be defeated by another proposal.
What is Black's median voter theorem?
When you add this, it causes cycling in decisions.
What is a second ideological dimension?
This is the main assumption of the median voter theorem.
Why do parties converge on the median voter?
Why do voters choose the party/campaign closest to them?
When this occurs, it is called a Tyranny of the Majority.
What happens when the majority dominates politics, sidelining all other actors or the minority?
Members of Congress avoid this in order to be well-loved by many rather than maintain safety.
What are vote-maximizers? Or avoiding winning elections by large margins?
One might say institutional rules don't matter because of this saying.
What is "Congress will do whatever it wants, whenever it wants"?