Summary of Lupia: Busy voters, agenda control, and the power of information -- Adam Brown, BYU Political Science

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Lupia: Busy voters, agenda control, and the power of information

Disclaimer. Don't rely on these old notes in lieu of reading the literature, but they can jog your memory. As a grad student long ago, my peers and I collaborated to write and exchange summaries of political science research. I posted them to a wiki-style website. "Wikisum" is now dead but archived here. I cannot vouch for these notes' accuracy, nor can I say who wrote them.

Lupia. 1992. Busy voters, agenda control, and the power of information. APSR 86:390-403.

In Brief

Lupia seeks to explain how referenda work. There's no parties, so we rely almost exclusively on cues from interest groups (who read all the propositions and tell us how we should vote). If we know which interest groups we can trust, then we follow their advice.

The Argument

The Game

There is a monopolistic agenda setter who proposes a referendum for a new policy. The agenda setter has complete knowledge. The voters have varying levels of information about the setter's preferences (see Table on p 392). Voters have complete information about the status quo, however.

Lemmas (Some)

Centrist voters should always support the status quo.
Opposition voters should support the status quo.
If there is uncertainty as to the setter's true preferences, he should propose a new status quo that reflects his ideal point exactly.

Main Predictions

Although voters lack complete information and lack an incentive to invest in information, they can heed information cues, which can help incompletely informed voters emulate informed voters.
The setter should offer his personal ideal point as an alternative if he knows "that voters will be uncertain about the location (content) of the alternative" (p 398).

Data and Evidence

None. This is a formal model.

Future Research Proposals

Information cues have varying levels of credibility. This study assumed perfect credibility. How does this matter?
Electoral competition (non-monopolistic agenda control) would affect information, and information affects voting behavior. We should therefore develop models that incorporate both information and competition.

Comments and Criticisms

Key Insight: under conditions of incomplete information, the agenda-setter's dominant strategy is always to make their ideal point the offered alternative. (Thus, we're in model #4.). PROBLEM: Why is it credible if the setter claims that the proposal is really his ideal point?

Research by the same authors

Research on similar subjects

Arceneaux: The federal face of voting (4 shared tags)
Lupia and McCubbins: The Democratic Dilemma (3 shared tags)
Lupia, Levine, Menning, and Sin: Were Bush tax cut supporters simply ignorant (3 shared tags)
Lupia: Shortcuts versus encyclopedias (3 shared tags)
Peltzman: Economic conditions and gubernatorial elections (3 shared tags)
Stein: Economic voting for governor and U.S. Senator (3 shared tags)
Tompkins: Have gubernatorial elections become more distinctive contests (3 shared tags)
Turett: The vulnerability of American governors, 1900-1969 (3 shared tags)

Tags

Lupia, Arthur (author) • American Politics • Voting • Information • Agenda Control • State Politics (U.S.) • Direct Democracy

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