THE POLITICAL-ECONOMY OF INACTION

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: HOWITT, P; WINTROBE, R
• 署名单位: Western University (University of Western Ontario)
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/0047-2727(94)01432-N
• 发表日期: 1995
• 页码: 329-353
• 关键词: POLITICAL INACTION; DEMOCRACY; Electoral competition; FISCAL DEFICITS; dictatorship

摘要

This paper develops a simple model of political inaction in a two-party democracy, i.e. it shows the conditions under which both parties will prefer to live with an unsatisfactory and inefficient status quo rather than to raise an issue. The risk of raising the issue to either party is the fear of ending up with the other party's policy (for example, by losing the election), regarded as even worse than the status quo. The model shows that the problem is likely to be particularly serious, the more evenly matched is political competition, the more risk-averse the parties, the less voters trust the parties, the more divided is public opinion and the more important the issue. The model is illustrated with a number of examples of real-world inaction, e.g. on fiscal deficits, abortion, the transition to socialism and the fall of the Weimar Republic. In general, the analysis also suggests that, over a range, more representation of political viewpoints implies a smaller likelihood of political action, so that democracy implies a tradeoff between representation and the capacity for political action.