Referendum timing

نویسندگان

  • Mattias K. Polborn
  • Gerald Willmann
چکیده

In many important political problems, citizens can directly participate in the decision making through a referendum. Examples include accession to international organizations (EU, Euro monetary union) or Quebec’s independence referendum. These settings are often characterized by uncertainty over the future consequences of the decision, the possibility of (at least partial) learning about these consequences over time before a decision, and irreversibility once a decision is made by the electorate. In our model, a politician who may be biased (relative to the median voter in the electorate) towards the proposal chooses the timing of the referendum. We analyze how the optimal timing decision depends on the political environment and the bias of the politician. We show that the power to schedule a referendum allows both positively and negatively biased politicians to implement decisions different from those preferred by the median voter.

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تاریخ انتشار 2004