The Multiple Hierarchical Legislatures in a Representative Democracy: Districting for Policy Implementation

Katsuya Kobayashi and Attila Tasnádi

Corvinus Economics Working Papers (CEWP) from Corvinus University of Budapest

Abstract: We build a multiple hierarchical model of a representative democracy in which, for instance, voters elect county representatives, county representatives elect district representatives, district representatives elect state representatives, and state representatives elect a prime minister. We use our model to show that the policy determined by the final representative can become more extreme as the number of hierarchical levels increases because of increased opportunities for gerrymandering. Thus, a sufficiently large number of voters gives a district maker an advantage, enabling her to implement her favorite policy. We also show that the range of implementable policies increases with the depth of the hierarchical system. Consequently, districting by a candidate in a hierarchical legislative system can be viewed as a type of policy implementation device.

Keywords: electoral systems; median voter; gerrymandering; council democracies. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-12-17
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-mic and nep-pol
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cvh:coecwp:2014/19

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