Understanding the Uncovered Set

Pennsylvania State Univ University Park, University Park PA

Investigators

Abstract

This research focuses on a fundamental constraint on legislative action: the set of proposals that are enactable, meaning there is an agenda of proposals and amendments that has the proposal as the result when legislators cast their votes. This concept is critical to understanding many facets of legislative strategy: - agenda-setting: guaranteeing a result by arranging a series of proposals and amendments to be voted on sequentially. Regardless of who sets the agenda, their efforts must begin with what is enactable, as this set defines which outcomes can be produced by stacking the legislative deck in this way. - strategic voting, voting for an undesirable alternative at one point in an agenda to shape the ultimate outcome. A group might vote for an amendment that makes a proposal they oppose even worse, knowing the unamended proposal will be enacted but the amended proposal will not. This strategy is possible only if legislators know what is enactable, which allows them to predict the consequences of their behavior. - arm-twisting, securing an outcome with threats and rewards, by forcing some members to vote against their policy goals or constituents. Before doing so, party leaders must determine whether their desired outcome is enactable, for if it is, they can secure it by constructing the right agenda and allowing legislators to vote freely. While much research has focused on showing the utility of these tactics, none incorporate a specification of what is enactable. This specification is not needed to show how these tactics work, but is necessary to assess their potential impact in real-world settings, or to attribute outcomes to their use. For example, a party's success at enacting its program might result from its leaders success at agenda setting, but may also occur because enactable outcomes are naturally biased towards the party, without party leaders doing anything. Without knowing what it enactable, it is impossible to distinguish between these explanations. Our approach characterizes enactability in terms of the uncovered set, a solution concept for spatial voting games. The uncovered set captures the essence of enactability, and is an important refinement in the stream of research into the properties of majority rule. The problem is, no one knows what the uncovered set looks like for a given spatial voting game or real-world situation. As a result, it is impossible to use the uncovered set to make predictions about real-world behavior, or to evaluate the factors driving real-world outcomes. It is impossible to determine whether the uncovered sets predictions differ from those obtained by other methods. And it is impossible to test the uncovered set . to determine whether it is an analytic curiosity or a valuable insight into legislative action. The research we propose aims at addressing all of these questions. Using previous work that implements a computational method for estimating uncovered sets, we will conduct a series of experiments involving group decision-making to see if the uncovered sets behavioral predictions are valid. We will also reanalyze data from classic experiments to see if their findings are consistent with the uncovered set. We will also use our technique to see if the uncovered set is a good predictor of outcomes in the contemporary House. Finally, using a combination of formal analysis and simulations, we will refine our technique, and compare the uncovered sets predictions to those developed from other methods.