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Politics and Public Sector - 2 - Coggle Diagram
Politics and Public Sector - 2
Spatial models in politics
Helps explain how voters, parties, legislators make decisions
Key elements
Policy space
- Represents all possible policy options
Status Quo
- Current situation/policy
Winset of status quo
- The set of policies that all veto players prefer to the status quo
Core
- Set of laws/policies that cannot be defeated by any other proposal
Ideal points
- Represent most preferred policy
Utility
- distance (short) between policy and ideal point
Indifference curves
- Circles or lines around a point representing points with the same level of utility
Used to represent preferences in geometric space - Driven by
distances
Applications
Voter behavior
: voters choose candidates or parties closer to their ideal point
Party Strategy
Coalition formation
Veto Player framework
Framework to understand policy change rather than which policy is implemented
More than one VP : policy change if SQ not between them
Large core = great chance SQ in it
If SQ in core no change in policy
One veto player = policy change to reflect its preferences
Time in office and stability
Agenda-setting power
Ability of an actor to propose policies from the winset. Their influence depend on the size of winset
Core
Larger cores mean fewer options to change = more stability
Winset size
Small winset = high stability
Large winset = easier policy change
Veto players
More veto players increase stability but reduce flexibility
Distance between two VP also affects stability
Each actor whose agreement is necessary to pass a policy = veto player
A veto player is considered
absorbed
when his preferences are fully contained within the core or between two other veto players
Parliamentary VS Presidential democracy
Head of state ?
Directly elected head of state
Semi-Presidential
"Ceremonial" Head of state
Parliamentary
YES
Presidential
Dependence of executive on legislature ?
NO