-Balance achieved strictly through preferences

-Catholic Pope voting

There is not a preference reduced Equilibrium with lists of favorite movies.

Very little structure

-Balance achieved through the way vote is structured to arrive at an equilibrium

Majority of problems in Congress are this kind.

-Creating structures to induce equilibrium

Hurrah votes

Olympic committee voting is an example. There are four and the lowest gets voted off. You can only vote when your country does not have one of the alternatives. This type of voting has a lot of structure.

When one is preferred to another.

three people never arrive at a solution

we would have had a preference induced equilibrium if two of the three people wanted a solution.

(3 people, 3 alternatives and one decision= no solution)

the order of your preferences from least to greatest

Another definition for McKelvey's chaos theorem.

Every point inside the circle are preferred the same. The close ryou get to the ideal point the happier/ the further away you get the less happier.

The existing policy.

When the status quo point was more extreme, the other side can pull it further away. Extreme status quo points give the committee a lot of power.

Median voter= determines the straight majoirty, a new policy has to appeal to the median voter

President= Because of the veto pivot, tells us what side of the ideological continuum we're on.

Veto Pivot- 2/3's voter that is required to override a presidential veto (H and S)

Filibuster Pivot- voter to break the filibuster to invoke cloture in the Senate

1. Gridlock is common but not constant

2. Winning coalitions are bipartisan and NOT minimum winning coalitions.

1. Sincere v. Sophisticated voting - it has a hard time to rationalize because we can't predict what the behavior will be.

2. Doesn't look like reality- doesn't model Congress accurately.

Harder to pass bills in the Senate

Senate= veto and filibuster pivots

House= Veto and median voter pivots

Rational Comprehensive vs Successive Limited Comparisons

or

Roots vs Branches

or

Rational Models vs Incrementalism

a. Lots of similarities between branch and median voter

b. called root vs branch because you plant a seed and as you pass policy an entirely new tree will grow looking different than the tree that existed before.

c. Incrementalism says instead of growing a new tree, build a new branch.(Congressionanl policymaking)

Rational Comprehensive

or

Root

or

Rational Models

1. Actors are all knowing

(everyone knows the game being played, everyone knows the votes to override a veto, everyone knows whats going on)

2. Anaylsis is comprehensive and thorough

(She knows the consequences of what will happen)

3. Optimal choice is determined (Doesn't sound like Congress, Congress rarely thinks of all the options to decide a problem)

Successive Limited Comparisons

or

Branch

or Incrementalism

1. Actors face constraints

2. Anaylsis is ad hoc (instead of comprehensive)- ad hoc =for the particular end or case at hand without consideration of wider application

3. Satisficed option is chosen

Part of Incrementalism, branch, or Successive Limited Comparisons.

an option that is not the best but good enough to meet your minimum standard.

All streams analysis are part of the garbage can, but not everything in the garbage can is in streams analysis.

Series of garbage cans with problems in each one of them. The wrong policy, wrong policymaker, wrong program, it doesn't work- goes in garbage can.

The right policy, right policymaker, right program- a new branch is created.

A window of time when policy can be made relevantly

political actors force streams to align to make a policy window.

Criteria for Evaluating Models

or

5 Ways to Judge Models

1.Clarity of Assumptions, processes, and outcomes

2. Accuracy

3. Generalizability

4.Surprise Value

5. Simplicity

-Most closely related to median voter.

Median voter is very good at this, you know exactly what the outcome would be depending on the median voter and whatever the median voter wants, the median voter would get.

-Garbage cans don't tell us anything clarity of assumptions

-How accurate was your prediction?

-People rather have accuracy than surprise value.

-Generalizability relates to incrementalism.

-Gridlock model is hard to generalize.

Does the outcome lead to somehting we didn't consider?

-The gridlock model would be simpler if there wasn't a House, you wouldn't lose accuracy and enhances surprise value.

-With a Senate you lose simplicity but gain accuracy

1. All voting scores

2. True for House and Senate

3. Norht and South, but more in the South

Requirements for Explanations

Reasons for Party Polarization

1. Redistricting

2. Constituent Sorting

3. Party Activists are more extreme

4. Procedural Change

People move to neighborhoods that represent their views.

Dem - infrastructure

Rep- good schools low taxes.

Majority leader has more control over process than they use to, forcing party chambers to vote.

One of the Four explanations of Party Polarization

1. procedural

(rule votes) how long? who offers? open/closed rules?

2. amendments (ex minimum wage) closed rule means no amendment votes

3. final passage

passes in the house and senate. polarized if closed rule. final passage does not cause polarization overtime, same with amendments.

procedural votes are getting larger and radically polarizing the House

1. look at specific states

2. look at obliterated and new districts

3. lines staying the same vs lines that change

4. changes over elections

ideological and geographical sorting

don't talk much about ideological sorting.

fewer members represent weak districts, more represent the safe districts.

people changing districts causes party polarization.

weak districts are ideological

safe districts are liberal

25%  polarization brought about by increasing safety of Congressional districts

75% polarization brought about by increasingly ideological voting across groups.

Changing party allegiance, not party views. No one is affected badly.

1. Committee system

2. Party System

3. President

4. Legislative Process

1. Senate does not redistrict

2. no difference between north and south