Assessing the citizen – candidate model

Dan Usher

Public Choice, 2005, vol. 125, issue 1, 43-65

Abstract: Citizen–candidate models postulate a politics without political parties. Any citizen may become a candidate for office. A winner is chosen from among the candidates by voting with ties broken by the flip of a coin. All voters have preferences over a set of policies. The winning candidate adopts his preferred policy. It is proved on certain assumptions that there exists an equilibrium in these models and that the equilibrium is efficient. The significance of the proof is tested here with reference to the paradox of voting, the exploitation problem, the transposition of the Nash equilibrium from markets to politics, and constitutional constraints. The quest for a political equilibrium leads in the end to the recognition of a minimal rock-bottom requirement for cooperation and negotiation in democratic government. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005

Date: 2005
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DOI: 10.1007/s11127-005-3409-4

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