The Art of Compromising : Voting with Interdependent Values and the Flag of the Weimar Republic

We compare sequential, binary voting schemes conducted by privately informed agents with interdependent preferences and three alternatives a compromise alternative in addition to two "extreme" alternatives on the left and on the right. The Anglo-Saxon amendment procedure always selects the (complete-information) Condorcet winner, but the continental successive procedure does not. Furthermore, under the successive procedure, the agenda that puts the "extreme" alternative with ex ante higher support last elects the Condorcet winner with a higher probability than the agenda that puts that alternative rst. We illustrate our main ndings with the vote on the ag of the Weimar republic