Democracy for Polarized Committees: The Tale of Blotto's Lieutenants / Alessandra Casella, Jean Francois Laslier, Antonin Macé.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Casella, Alessandra.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Laslier, Jean Francois.

Macé, Antonin.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w22231.

NBER working paper series no. w22231

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Democracy for Polarized Committees

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2016.

Summary:

In polarized committees, majority voting disenfranchises the minority. Allowing voters to spend freely a fixed budget of votes over multiple issues restores some minority power. However, it also creates a complex strategic scenario: a hide-and-seek game between majority and minority voters that corresponds to a decentralized version of the Colonel Blotto game. We offer theoretical results and bring the game to the laboratory. The minority wins as frequently as theory predicts, despite subjects deviating from equilibrium strategies. Because subjects understand the logic of the game -- minority voters must concentrate votes unpredictably -- the exact choices are of secondary importance, a result that vouches for the robustness of the voting rule to strategic mistakes.

Notes:

Print version record

May 2016.