[EM] Interesting article-- James Buchanan

[Sampo Syreeni]

On 2003-03-21, Rob Lanphier uttered to Bart Ingles and election-methods at ele...:

>[...] and goes so far as to ponder the notion that the democratic cycles
>pointed out by Arrow and Black may be a virtue.

Yes. The idea seems exceedingly weird when you bump into it for the first
time. Buchanan's short further analysis in, I think, The Reason of Rules,
of how majority cycling can lead to stable redistributive policy and how
constitutional limitations affect the outcome is awesome as well. I
heartily recommend his works -- the most important ones are even available
online, at econlib.org.

However, I also believe Buchanan confuses two concepts here which aren't
perhaps as tightly connected as one might think. The first is cyclical
majorities, in the static social choice sense of Arrow and Condorcet. The
second is majority cycling in the dynamic sense of a stable oscillation
between separate majorities in consequtive elections. The first will often
give rise to the second, but there are further, institutional mechanisms
at work here which are relevant to the public choice economist as well.
As a good example, alternating majorities (stable cycles of just two
ruling parties) obviously cannot be explained using static individual
preference orders.

I'd say the dynamic and institutional aspects of political equilibria seem
to make them more markedly an issue in economics and game theory, and
perhaps less amenable to analysis via formal social choice and election
methods theory. I also find it a bit odd that Buchanan doesn't make the
distinction -- after all, he's a notable figure among the New
Institutionalists, and so ought to be able to see the difference.
-- 
Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy - mailto:decoy at iki.fi, tel:+358-50-5756111
student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front
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