Taking Blame Avoidance and Vote Explanation Seriously

• In Event: Legislative Effectiveness

Abstract

We argue that preferences and institutional rules affect behavioral tendencies that earlier spatial models ignored. We present behavioral tendencies as choices that are the product of particular rationalizations or justifications. Alternatively, one could think of them as a choice-justification pairs. As such, behavioral tendencies are entwined with both preferences and institutions. Decisionmakers act as though they choose both a policy alternative and a rationale for their policy choice. In Cherepanov et al. (2013) and Patty and Penn (2014), any number of rationalizations or principles could be employed. In this paper, the operating behavioral principles that legislators employ are blame avoidance and vote explanation.

We develop a spatial model that incorporates blame avoidance and vote explanation as the basis for individual choice. With blame avoidance and vote explanation in force, legislators are reluctant to trade policy gains in one dimension for policy losses in another dimension. Building a spatial model from a foundation of blame avoidance and vote explanation is consistent with some of the most prominent literature on legislators’ behaviors and with models of choice in behavioral economics. We formally characterize stable outcomes when players adhere to blame avoidance and vote explanation. Stable outcomes tend to be centrally located, but there are scenarios in which they are not pareto efficient. We also note that one player’s adoption of blame avoidance and vote explanation behaviors can affect another player’s adoption of the same rationales. That is, the justification for one’s behavior is not necessarily independent from others’ behaviors and justifications. Results are contrasted with the earlier results from spatial models of legislatures.

Author

• Scott H. Ainsworth, University of Georgia