Round-Robin Political Tournaments: Abstention, Truthful Equilibria, and Effective Power

Roland Pongou and Bertrand Tchantcho (btchantcho@yahoo.fr)
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Bertrand Tchantcho: Department of Mathematics, École Normale Supérieure, University of Yaoundé I, Cameroon; Université de Cergy Pontoise, THEMA, France

Working Papers from University of Ottawa, Department of Economics

Abstract: A round-robin political tournament is an election format where multiple candidates contest in pairs, and votes are aggregated using a general rule to form a social ranking. We formalize this tournament as a strategic form game and provide a necessary and sufficient condition under which truthful voting is a Nash equilibrium. Building on this analysis, we study the concept of effective power, defined as a voter's ability to bring about a social ranking that maximizes his preferences. We show that the classical theories of political power do not translate into effective power in general. We then provide a full characterization of the classes of political tournaments and utility metrics for which these theories capture effective power. We offer both structural and behavioral interpretations of the findings, and derive practical implications for the design of political tournaments that are compatible with truth-telling.

Keywords: Round-robin Political Tournaments; Ranked Voting; Hyper-preferences; Truthful Equilibria; Effective Power; Psychology; Political Design. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-gth, nep-mic and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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http://hdl.handle.net/10393/42741 (application/pdf)

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Journal Article: Round-robin political tournaments: Abstention, truthful equilibria, and effective power (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ott:wpaper:2110e

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