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When Do Conflicting Parties Share Political Power?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2015

Marco Battaglini  and
Lydia Mechtenberg
Marco Battaglini
Affiliation:
Cornell University, Economics Department, Ithaca, NY, USA; email: battaglini@cornell.edu
Lydia Mechtenberg
Affiliation:
University of Hamburg, School of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, Department of Economics, Hamburg, Germany; e-mail: lydia.mechtenberg@wiso.uni-hamburg.de
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Abstract

We conduct a laboratory experiment to study the incentives of a privileged group (the “yellows”) to share political power with another group (the “blues”). The yellows collectively choose the voting rule for a general election: a simple-majority rule that favors them, or a proportional rule. In two treatments, the blues can use a costly punishment option. We find that the yellows share power voluntarily only to a small extent, but they are more inclined to do so under the threat of punishment, despite the fact that punishments are not sub-game perfect. The blue group conditions punishments both on the voting rule and the electoral outcome.

Keywords

Constitutional designendogenous institutions
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Experimental Political Science , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , Winter 2015 , pp. 139 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © The Experimental Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2015 

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