TY - JOUR
T1 - Formation of Parties and Coalitions in Multiple Referendums
AU - Kalech, Meir
AU - Koppel, Moshe
AU - Diskin, Abraham
AU - Rohn, Eli
AU - Roshanski, Inbal
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, Springer Nature B.V.
PY - 2020/8/1
Y1 - 2020/8/1
N2 - We consider a thought experiment in which voters could submit binary preferences regarding each of a pre-determined list of independent relevant issues, so that majorities could be tallied per issue. It might be thought that if such voting became technically feasible and widespread, parties and coalitions could be circumvented altogether and would become irrelevant. In this paper, we show, however, why and how voters would spontaneously self-organize into parties, and parties would self-organize into coalitions, prior to elections. We will see that such coordination is possible, even assuming very limited capabilities of communication and coordination. Using both analytical and empirical methods, we show that the average voter in a majority coalition would gain more than if no parties were formed, but the average voter overall (in or out of the coalition) would be worse off. Furthermore, the extent of these gains and losses is inversely proportional to the degree to which voters line along a unidimensional left–right axis.
AB - We consider a thought experiment in which voters could submit binary preferences regarding each of a pre-determined list of independent relevant issues, so that majorities could be tallied per issue. It might be thought that if such voting became technically feasible and widespread, parties and coalitions could be circumvented altogether and would become irrelevant. In this paper, we show, however, why and how voters would spontaneously self-organize into parties, and parties would self-organize into coalitions, prior to elections. We will see that such coordination is possible, even assuming very limited capabilities of communication and coordination. Using both analytical and empirical methods, we show that the average voter in a majority coalition would gain more than if no parties were formed, but the average voter overall (in or out of the coalition) would be worse off. Furthermore, the extent of these gains and losses is inversely proportional to the degree to which voters line along a unidimensional left–right axis.
KW - Clustering
KW - Coalition formation
KW - e-voting
KW - Partitioning
KW - Social choice
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85085137705&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10726-020-09675-1
DO - 10.1007/s10726-020-09675-1
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AN - SCOPUS:85085137705
SN - 0926-2644
VL - 29
SP - 723
EP - 745
JO - Group Decision and Negotiation
JF - Group Decision and Negotiation
IS - 4
ER -