Viability, preference, and coalitions in the french election of 1951

Abstract

Elections as a social choice institution have, of course, received intensive theoretical consideration in Public Choice. However, attention has largely been focused on situations that can be represented as n-person noncooperative games among candidates or parties, with particular emphasis on two-person constant-sum games. While mathematical facility has had much to do with these theoretical developments, the prevalence of the two-party system in the United States perhaps has also had an influence. Yet multiparty systems are in presence in much of the world. Multicandidate primaries already common in the U.S. have been further encouraged by recent proposals for proportional representation in Presidential primaries. The voter in a multicandidate or multiparty race is faced with a complex decision task. Viability as well as preference must be taken into account (McKelvey and Ordeshook, 1972; Kramer, 1968). Thus the voter may rationally vote for a candidate other than that candidate whose "position" is "closest" to the voter's.1 Moreover, in addition to considering the impact of his vote on eventual governing