Why would a narrow elite ever extend the vote to the masses? Perhaps the hand of the elite is forced by the threat of revolution. To convince the masses that the elite is committed to giving them surplus, the elite extend the franchise. This is argument of Acemoglu and Robinson.
Lizzeri and Persico have a quite different argument which has particular resonance for Britain’s Age of Reform in the nineteenth century. Suppose only a fraction of the population can vote. Two parties, the Whigs and the Tories compete for their vote. The parties can either offer a public good or a transfer with revenue generated via taxation. When the enfranchised group is a small elite, there is an incentive to tax the entire population and then target transfers to swing voters in the elite. That way a party can give them as much as they would get with pubic good provision and get into power. The mass of the elite that is not targeted gets no transfer.
When the franchise is extended pork barrel politics is not as powerful as the taxable endowment is not large enough to offer the now larger majority enough to compensate them for zero pubic good production. Each political party can at least get a 50% chance of getting elected by offering public goods. Hence, an extension of the franchise leads to less pork barrel politics and more public good production. Some members of the elite are indifferent to this change and others – those who were not receiving transfers when the franchise was small – strictly prefer it. Hence, extension of the franchise Pareto-dominates a small franchise. The franchise can be extended even when there is no threat of revolution by the disenfranchised masses.
The Pareto-domination property does not obtain in general (when voters are ideological and pubic good production is not zero-one) but the majority of the elite prefers extension of the franchise. In nineteenth century Britain, members of the elite clamoured for the extension of the franchise. There was less pork barrel transfer and more public good production after the franchise was extended.
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October 6, 2011 at 9:13 am
Alison Cummins
Is that economics-ese for “enlightened self-interest”?
October 6, 2011 at 9:16 am
cephalicfurrow
It makes more sense to think of the elite as split into warring factions rather than a unitary bloc. One of the factions thinks that it can gain political advantage by extending the franchise to certain elements of the non-elite that it thinks will vote in its favor (or at least will vote against its elite rivals).
Thus, enthusiastic support for widened suffrage is a rational, selfish gambit by one elite faction seeking to extend its power against its elite rivals.
October 6, 2011 at 11:44 am
Sandeep Baliga
Their extended model allows for factions with different preferences and their result still goes through.
October 6, 2011 at 9:51 am
Timothy Gawne
Sounds good in a theoretical academic way.
But suppose that extending the franchise is just a way to distract the masses, while the elites continue to just funnel money into their own pockets?
Increasingly ‘democracy’ is becoming a means of privatizing power while socializing responsibility. With elite domination of the parties and mass media, the voters are given a choice of two candidates, both of whom are in the pockets of their elite backers. Everything they say publicly is false, because they have made prior deals in secret. More and more we see politicians elected on one platform, then immediately and without apology going off to do the opposite. We are not talking about the inevitable compromises of reality with hopes and plans, we are talking direct and obvious deception. So the public really has no say in policy. BUT, because we are in a ‘democracy’, the public is still considered responsible for all moral and financial actions of their faux-representatives. It’s a con.
When the franchise REALLY looks like it might be extended to the masses – for example, though direct referenda on specific policy issues – the elites claw like scalded cats to block it. Look at what happens when there is a referenda to, for example, enforce the laws against cheap-labor illegal immigration (the laws preventing poor Americans from sending their kids to rich school districts are OK however). The rich simply cancel it out, and whine that letting the public decide major policy issues directly is now fascist.
October 6, 2011 at 11:08 am
Anonymous
This is an interesting case. I am studying now an ever more interesting case: disenfranchising!!
In the case study, some people of town own the water of the river. They own shares on the water and have meetings on regular issues. Before 1895, each person that owns at least 1 share (there were 832 shares) is entitled with 1 vote. After 1895, votes were made proportional to (four) shares. So they switch from a club/democracy to a corporation-type political organization.
I say this is interesting, because in 1895 when they decide to be a corporation, the change was approved by at least 2/3 of the voters, using the democratic rules. Using the property rights distribution, roughly 300 farmers having more than 2/3 of the decision power voted for a system in which they will have roughly 40% of the decision power.
They acknowledged that they understand that this was a fairer and more accountable way to control the institution that provides water (private good with externalities/ public good).
October 10, 2011 at 2:55 pm
ramblingperfectionist
“The Pareto-domination property does not obtain in general (when voters are ideological…”
And here I thought when voters are ideological was the general case.