Analysis of Democratic Institutions: Structure

Abstract

This paper develops an economic perspective on political theory, as a guide to some problems and directions of current research. The electoral system and the allocation of powers to elected offices together define the game that politicians play. So democratic structures should be compared and evaluated by analyzing game models, to see how equilibrium behavior of political agents may depend on the structure of the political system. The goal of such research is to predict how the conduct of politicians and the performance of government may depend on the incentives created by the structure of the political system.