Limits on Agenda Control in Spatial Voting Games? Scott

A theorem due to McKelvey implies that, if a single agent controls the agenda of a spatial voting game, he can almost always design an agenda that yields whatever voting outcome he wishes. Here we make use of a geometrical construct called the “yolk” to demonstrate the existence of significant limits on such agenda control. We show that the feasibility of agenda control is inversely related to the size of the yolk. In general, there are strong centripetal forces in spatial voting games, which make it much easier to move voting processes in a centrist direction than in non-centrist one. Thus, outcomes of plausible agenda processes will probably be found in the central area of the space.