Self-Enforcing Partisan Procedures

• In Event: Formal Theories of Democratic Politics

Abstract

This paper studies how polarization affects procedural choice in deliberative bodies. Using a multi-stage Romer-Rosenthal bargaining framework, we analyze how a group chooses a procedure (specifying members' proposal rights) to bargain over a one-dimensional policy. When members bargain over procedures, they do not know whether their interests will be fully aligned across party lines (high-polarization issue) or somewhat heterogeneous (low-polarization issue), and they cannot commit to uphold them after learning the issue. Our notion of policy polarization captures both the likelihood of a high-polarization issue and the degree of intraparty heterogeneity under a low-polarization issue. We establish that in equilibrium proposal rights will be (i) concentrated in the hands of a few non-moderate members, and (ii) systematically biased in favor of the majority party. As policy polarization increases, so does the partisan bias in equilibrium procedures.

Authors

• Carlo Prato, Columbia University

• Daniel Diermeier, University of Chicago

• Razvan Vlaicu, Inter-American Development Bank