Descripción del proyecto
Análisis detallado sobre la manipulación electoral
Se cree que los grandes electorados pueden tomar decisiones precisas mediante la consideración colectiva de información de muchos votantes. Sin embargo, esta teoría pasa por alto la presencia de organizadores polarizados que tratan de manipular los resultados. Estos organizadores pueden ser directores generales que organizan votaciones de accionistas, gobiernos regionales que organizan referendos y partidos políticos durante las elecciones generales. En el proyecto InfoAggregation, financiado por el Consejo Europeo de Investigación, se pretende investigar cómo influyen en la capacidad de agregación de información de las elecciones las entidades polarizadas e informadas de forma privada, denominadas organizadores electorales. Su equipo desarrollará y analizará nuevos modelos de votación, al tiempo que examinará la eficacia de las salvaguardias institucionales diseñadas para impedir dicha manipulación. En InfoAggregation, también se aplicará la teoría para analizar la votación de los accionistas y el control de las empresas, explorando formas de mitigar la polarización y garantizar resultados justos.
Objetivo
Elections are the foundation for democratic decision making. This research program will examine the effects of biased and privately informed entities—election organizers—on the ability of elections to aggregate information: Existing theory demonstrates that large electorates can reach correct decisions by aggregating information dispersed among many voters. However, existing theory does not account for the ubiquitous presence of biased organizers who intend to affect the election outcome. Examples of biased organizers may include a CEO holding a shareholder vote, a regional government holding a referendum, and political parties in general elections.
This project will develop and analyze new models of voting that account for the effects of biased organizers on information aggregation. One of the examples I consider is an election organizer who can increase voter participation at some cost (e.g. through advertising). Preliminary work suggests that the presence of biased organizers has significant impact. As increasing participation becomes cheap, equilibria exist where the election organizer recruits a large number voters and yet the majority votes almost surely for the organizer’s favorite policy. This failure of information aggregation contrasts starkly with existing results for elections in which the number of voters is exogenously large.
I will study the effectiveness of institutional safeguards against such manipulation, including supermajority rules, publicity requirements, and the regulation of communication to voters, and I will apply the theory in the context of shareholder voting and corporate control. Thus, this research program has important implications for the design of elections in realistic voting scenarios.
Ámbito científico
Programa(s)
Régimen de financiación
ERC-STG - Starting GrantInstitución de acogida
53113 Bonn
Alemania