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SS 210 - Formal Theories in Political Science

Syllabus

C L A S S M E E T I N G S

We will meet on Mondays, 5 - 8PM, in 210 Baxter Hall.

P R E R E Q U I S I T E S

Basic knowledge of probability and game theory are necessary.

R E Q U I R E M E N T S

Formal requirements will be composed of:

Class Presentations: When presenting a paper, make sure to spell out the question, identify why it is important, extract the essence of the argument, describe what the paper does, and the provide your judgment of the paper.
Individual Papers: You should hand a ~5 page (1.5 line spaced, 11 pt font) proposal for a paper on 10.30. This should outline a question, its context in the literature, why it is important, and the type of results you are looking for. You should hand an expanded 15 page version (1.5 line spaced, 11 pt font) by 12.4. The expanded version should include preliminary results. If your project is theoretical in nature, you should sketch a model and provide some basic insights from the model. If it is empirical, you should describe precisely the data sources you will be using and empirical techniques you plan to utilize. Short (15 min) class presentations of the paper will take place on the last day of class, 11.30.

C O N T A C T I N G M E

Office: 301C Baxter Hall.

Feel free to e-mail me at lyariv@hss.caltech.edu to schedule a time to talk about class material or
about your research interests.

O U T L I N E

          The goal of the class is to introduce students to tools of formal modeling in the current voting literature as
          well as to provide an overview of the state of the art of models (and some experiments) pertaining to
          deliberations, political information processing, and institutional design.
          In particular, we will discuss how different institutions affect strategic behavior, how communication
          affects individual choices, and how political debate can be formally modeled.
          The following is a tentative road-map for the class. I am very open to spending more time on topics
          that students find exciting.

0. Introduction.

1. First defense of majoritarian elections: LLN and Condorcet's jury theorem.

2. Second defense of majoritarian elections: strategic behavior and its experimental validity.

3. Costly voting.

4. Costly information.

5. Deliberative democracy: ideology, cheap talk, the revelation principle, and some formal
results on voting with communication.

6. The media as a form of deliberations - polls, political advertising and its connections to categorization.

7. Rhetoric and language.

8. Attention and memory.

R E A D I N G L I S T

1. LLN and Condorcet's Jury Theorem

             Condorcet, Marquis de. (1785), Essai sur l'application de l'analyse a la probabilite des decisions rendues a
             la probabilite des voix. Paris: De l'imprimerie royale, translated in 1976 to "Essay on the Application of
             Mathematics to the Theory of Decision-Making." in Condorcet: Selected Writings, ed. Keith M. Baker.
             Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.

Feller, W. [1968], An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications, Volume I, Third Edition, John
Whiley & Sons.

Young, H. P. [1988], "Condorcet's Theory of Voting," American Political Science Review, 82(4), 1231-1244 (JSTOR).

2. Strategic Voting and its Experimental Validity

*Austen-Smith, D. and Banks, J. [1996], "Information Aggregation, Rationality, and the Condorcet Jury Theorem,"
The American Political Science Review, Vol. 90, No. 1., 34-45 (JSTOR).

Battaglini, M., Morton, R., and Palfrey, T. [2006], "The Swing Voter's Curse in the Laboratory," mimeo, (available at:
http://www.princeton.edu/~mbattagl/swingvoter.pdf).

Dekel, E. and Piccione, M. [2000], "Sequential Voting Procedure in Symmetric Binary Elections," Journal of
Political Economy, Vol. 108, No. 1, 34-55 (JSTOR).

*Feddersen, T. and Pesendorfer, W. [1996], "The Swing Voter's Curse," American Economic Review,
Vol. 86, No. 3, 408-424 (JSTOR).

Feddersen, T. J. and Pesendorfer, W. [1997], "Voting Behavior and Information Aggregation in Elections with Private
Information," Econometrica, Vol. 65, No. 5, 1029-1058 (JSTOR).

Feddersen, T. J. and Pesendorfer, W. [1998], "Convicting the Innocent: The Inferiority of Unanimous Jury Verdicts,"
American Political Science Review, Vol. 92, No. 1, 23-35 (JSTOR).

Feddersen, T. J. and Pesendorfer, W. [1999], "Abstention in Elections with Asymmetric Information and Diverse
Preferences," American Political Science Review, Vol. 93, No. 2, 381-398 (JSTOR).

Fey, M. and Kim, J. [2002], "The Swing Voter's Curse: Comment," American Economic Review, Vol. 92, No. 4,
1264-1268 (JSTOR).

*Guarnaschelli, S., McKelvey, R. C., and Palfrey, T. R. [2000], "An Experimental Study of Jury Decision Rules,"
American Political Science Review, Vol. 94, No. 2, 407-423.

Myerson, R. [1998], "Extended Poisson Games and the Condorcet Jury Theorem," Games and Economic
Behavior, Vol. 25, 111-131.

3. Costly Voting

*Borgers, T. [2004], "Costly Voting," American Economic Review, Vol. 94, No. 1, 57-66.

*Goeree, J. K. and Grosser, J. [2006], "Welfare Reducing Polls," Economic Theory, forthcoming (available at:
http://www.hss.caltech.edu/~jkg/welfarereducingpolls.pdf).

Krasa, S. and Polborn, M. [2004], "Is Mandatory Voting Better than Voluntary Voting?," mimeo (available at:
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/polborn/www/costlyvoting.pdf).

Palfrey, T. and Levine, D. [2006], "The Paradox of Voter Participation? A Laboratory Study," American Political
Science Review , forthcoming (available at: http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/papers/turnout6.pdf).

*Palfrey, T. and Rosenthal, H. [1985], "Voter Participation and Strategic Uncertainty," American Political Science
Review, Vol. 79, No. 1, 62-78 (JSTOR).

4. Costly Information

Downs, A. [1957], An Economic Theory of Democracy, Harper-Collins Publishers.

Gerardi, D. and Yariv, L. [2006], "Information Acquisition in Committees," mimeo (LY's website).

Gershkov, A. and Szentes, B. [2004], "Optimal Voting Schemes with Costly Information Acquisition,"
mimeo (available at: http://home.uchicago.edu/~szentes/votingp.pdf)

*Persico, N. [2004], "Committee Design with Endogenous Information," The Review of Economic
Studies, Vol. 71, No. 1, 165-194.

*Martinelli, C. [2004], "Would Rational Voters Acquire Costly Information?," forthcoming in Journal of
Economic Theory (available at http://ciep.itam.mx/~martinel/rationalvoters.pdf).

Yariv, L. [2004], "When Majority Rule Yields Majority Ruin," mimeo (LY's website).

5. Deliberative Democracy

5a. Initial Attempts and Tools

*Austen-Smith, D. and Banks, J. S. [2000], "Cheap Talk and Burned Money," Journal of Economic
Theory, Vol. 91, 1-16.

*Crawford, V. and Sobel, J. [1982], "Strategic Information Transmission," Econometrica, Vol. 50, 1431-1451
(JSTOR).

Elster, J. [1998], Deliberative Democracy, Cambridge University Press.

*Myerson, R. [1991], Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict, Cambridge University Press, Chapter 6.

5b. Communication through Voting and Polls

*Coughlan, P. [2000], "In Defense of Unanimous Jury Verdicts: Mistrials, Communication, and Strategic Voting,"
American Political Science Review, Vol. 94, No. 2, 375-393 (JSTOR).

*Fey, M. [1997], "Stability and Coordination in Duverger's Law: A Formal Model of Preelection Polls and Strategic
Voting," American Political Science Review, Vol. 91, 135-147 (JSTOR).

Martinelli, C. [2002], "Simple Plurality versus Plurality Runoff with Privately Informed Voters," Social Choice and
Welfare, Vol. 19, 901-920 (working paper version available at: http://ftp.itam.mx/pub/academico/inves/martinelli/00-04.pdf) .

*Piketty, T. [2000], "Voting as Communicating," The Review of Economic Studies, Vol. 67, 169-191 (JSTOR).

5c. Unstructured Communication

Austen-Smith, D. and Feddersen, T. [2002], "Abstention and Voting Rules," mimeo (available at:
http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/fedderse/homepage/papers/DeliberationWP2-11-08-02.pdf).

*Chwe, M. [1999], "Minority Voting Rights Can Maximize Majority Welfare," American Political Science
Review, Vol. 93, 85-97 (JSTOR).

*Gerardi, D. and Yariv, L. [2005], "Deliberative Voting," Journal of Economic Theory, forthcoming (LY's website).

Hafer, C. and Landa, D. [2004], "Deliberations as Self-Discovery and Institutions for Political Speech," mimeo
(available at: http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/politics/faculty/hafer/DeliberationFinal.pdf).

5d. The Effects of Social Networks on Communication

Fowler, J. [2005], "Turnout in a Small World," in Alan Zuckerman, ed., Social Logic of Politics, Temple University
Press, 269-287 (available at: http://jhfowler.ucdavis.edu/turnout_in_a_small_world.pdf).

Huckfeldt, R. [2005], "Unanimity, Discord, and the Diffusion of Public Opinion: How Opinion Variance Affects
Political Communication among Citizens," (available at: http://psfaculty.ucdavis.edu/huckfeldt/mw05.pdf).

*Jackson, M. and Yariv, L. [2006], "Diffusion of Behavior and Equilibrium Properties in Network Games" (joint with
Matthew O. Jackson), 2007, American Economic Review (Papers and Proceedings), forthcoming (LY's website).

*Newman, M. E. J. [2003], "The Structure and Function of Complex Networks," SIAM Review, Vol. 45, 167-256
(available at: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/courses/2004/cscs535/review.pdf).

6. The Media as a Form of Deliberations

*Gerber, A. S., and Green, D. P. [2000], "The Effects of Canvassing, Direct Mail, and Telephone Contact on Voter
Turnout: A Field Experiment," American Political Science Review, Vol. 94, 653-63.

       *Imai, K. [2005], "Do Get-Out-The-Vote Calles Reduce Turnout? The Importance of Statistical Methods for Field
       Experiments," American Political Science Review, Vol. 99, No. 2 (available at:
       http://www.princeton.edu/~kimai/research/files/matching.pdf).

Iyengar, S. and McGuire, W. J. [1993], Explorations in Political Psychology, Duke University Press.

*Mullainathan, S. and Shleifer, A. [2005], "The Market for News," American Economic Review , forthcoming
(available at: http://post.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/shleifer/papers/marketfornews_090904.pdf).

       Nickersen, D. W., Friedrichs, R. D., and King, D. [2006], "Partisan Mobilization Campaigns in the Field: Results
       from a Statewide Turnout Experiment in Michigan," forthcoming in Political Research Quarterly (available at:
       http://www.iop.harvard.edu/pdfs/king_nickerson_2005.pdf).

7. Rhetoric and Language

7a. Concepts and Categories

*Aragones, E., Gilboa, I., Postlewaite, A., and Schmeidler, D. [2004], "Fact Free Learning," American Economic
Review, Vol. 95, 1355-1368 (available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=643545).

Azrieli, Y. and Lehrer, E. [2004], "Categorization generated by prototypes -- an axiomatic approach," mimeo
(available at: http://www.math.tau.ac.il/~lehrer/Papers/Categorization_13.pdf).

*Jackson, M. and Fryer, R. [2004], "A Categorical Model of Cognition and Biased Decision-Making," mimeo
(available at: http://www.hss.caltech.edu/~jacksonm/categ.pdf ).

Mullainathan, S. [2002], "Thinking Through Categories," mimeo.

Tversky, A. [1977], "Features of Similarity," Psychological Review, 84, 327-352.

7b. Dimensionality

*Chwe, M. [2002], "Rationally Constructing the Dimensions of the Public Sphere," mimeo, UCLA (available at:
http://www.chwe.net/michael/co.pdf)

       *DeMarzo, P. M., Vayanos, D., and Zwiebel, J. [2003], "Persuasion Bias, Social Influence, and Unidimensional
       Opinions," Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 118, No. 3, 909-968 (available at:
       http://faculty-gsb.stanford.edu/demarzo/papers/persuasion.pdf).

*Spector, D. [2000], "Rational Debate and One-Dimensional Conflict," Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 115 (1),
181-200.

7c. Framing

Benford, R. D. and Snow, D. A. [2000], "Framing Processes and Social Movements," Annual Review of Sociology,
Vol. 26, 611-639 (available at: http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.soc.26.1.611)

Druckman, James N. [2001], "Using Credible Advice to Overcome Framing Effects," Journal of Law, Economics
and Organizations, Vol. 17, No. 1, 62-82.

Margolis, E. and Laurence, S. [1999], Concepts: Core Readings, MIT Press.

8. Attention and Memory

       *Gabaix, X., Laibson, D. I., Moloche, G., and Weinberg, S. [2004], "Informaition Acquisition: Experimental Analysis
       of a Boundedly Rational Model," American Economic Review, forthcoming (available at:
       http://econ-www.mit.edu/faculty/download_pdf.php?id=235).

Iyengar, S. and McGuire, W. J. [1993], Explorations in Political Psychology, Duke University Press.

Mullainathan, S. [2002], "A Memory Based Model of Bounded Rationality," Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 117,
No. 3, 735-774 (available at: http://post.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/mullainathan/papers/memory.pdf).

*Wilson, A. [2003], "Bounded Memory and Biases in Information Processing," mimeo.