This paper studies the strategic role of extremism within a two-country multi-stage game and shows that, in general, an equilibrium exists in which extremism is used by both rivals. We show that often changes in the environment affect the two countries differently. Specifically, as a country...

The paper, based on a historic account of the theory of representation in German legal thought, seeks to understand what effect particracy has on democratic representation and thereby links a discourse dating back to the days of the Weimar Republic to the analytical approach to the political...

During the life span of Spanish democracy, we have repeatedly observed many "puzzles" arising from the results of a general, state or municipal election, which, in turn, give way to governments based in partnerships of several political parties. In many democracies, it is a sine qua non...

This paper is devoted to the analysis of all constitutions equipped with electoral systems involving two step procedures. First, one candidate is elected in every jurisdiction by the electors in that jurisdiction, according to some aggregation procedure. Second, another aggregation procedure...

We experimentally investigate whether the procedural history of a sanctioning institution affects cooperation in a social dilemma. Subjects inherit the institutional setting from a previous generation of subjects who either decided on the implementation of the institution democratically by...

Do citizens legislate different tax policies than parliaments? We provide quasi-experimental evidence for causal effects of direct democracy. Town meetings (popular assemblies) replace local councils in small German municipalities below a specific population threshold. Difference-in-differences,...

The argument for democracy over dictatorship is often made on second-best grounds. Given the possibility of self-interested leaders, opportunities for predation are decreased by distributing political authority among a number of individuals. This second-best argument loses cogency under...

Pivato and Soh [Pivato, M., Soh, A., 2020. Weighted representative democracy. Journal of Mathematical Economics 88 (2020) 52--63] proposed a new system of democratic representation whereby any individual can choose any legislator as her representative and different legislators can represent...

Nowadays, several social movements asking for direct participation of citizens in the decision-making process are emerging in western democracies. These groups argue that traditional representative systems fail to adequately represent the will of the majority (often defined as “people” by...