POLSCI 242 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Bicameralism, Athenian Democracy, Information Asymmetry
8 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
POLISCI 10.16 Lecture Notes
Elections
Alternative to electoral democracy
o Direct democracy (aka Athenian democracy) – in Athens, males over a certain age were
allowed to participate in decision-making, which could technically result in an assembly of
50,000+
o This assembly would be able to pass bills and execute actions
o Highly inefficient – collective actions problem, size principal
Elections
o Ballot Ex: California’s ballot initiative
▪ Ex: Cannot raise property tax
o Recall elections
▪ Allow individuals to remove elected officials from office while they’re still in office
• Ex: Scott Walker
• Ex: After the Aurora shooting, legislator was removed by gun rights groups
who targeted them
Republic (representative democracy)
o Popular control through elections
o Principal – Agent problem
▪ Ex: Car mechanic
▪ Principal – voter
▪ Agent – elected official
▪ Because the agent has more information than the principal, the agent can easily
screw the principal over
▪ Basically, the problem: Are the elected officials going to faithfully represent us? How
do we hold them accountable?
The vote is a blunt instrument – votes are not very informative
o Analogous to grades
o If the election is close, the candidate may find the need to improve. If the reelection is a
landslide, then the candidate knows what he is doing is right
o What was good? What was bad?
o Incumbent is reelected because he does 2 things rights and 8 things wrong – the incumbent
doesn’t have information of what he did right and what he did wrong
o Asymmetrical information
Conditions for a democratic electoral system
o Equality of vote
▪ One person, one vote
▪ Senate apportionment – is criticized for violating the one person, one vote
• Two Senates for California and also two Senates for Wyoming – California
has a larger population so each vote is less when weighted against the votes
of Wyoming
o Participation
▪ Voting rights Ex: Bensel’s mid-19th century voting)
o Temporal
o Role of opposition
▪ Voters should have freedom to support whoever they want
▪ Has to be allowed to exist – a system is not democratic if the government suppresses
the opposition
▪ Government should respect the outcome of elections
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
