Randall L Calvert
Biographic Data
| ID | 1055431 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Randall L Calvert |
| GIVEN NAMES | Randall L |
| FAMILY NAME | Calvert |
| SIGNATURE | CALVERT R L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Rochester |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 864 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1981 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Strategic rationality and endogenous institutional change
The Strategy of Rhetoric
William H. Riker
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Strategy and Sophisticated Voting in the Senate
This paper extends the theory of sophisticated voting to cover situations in which legislators lack complete information about both the agenda and about their colleagues' preferences. The voting on a 1986 U.S. Senate resolution to provide full-time television coverage of Senate proceedings serves as an illustration of the theory, as well as adding to the stock of sophisticated voting cases found in the literature. Our approach makes possible a fu…
Lowi's Critique of Political Science
Sometimes an emotional irritant can be intellectually productive and provocative. For me, this was the case with Theodore Lowi's APSA presidential address, reprinted in the American Political Science Review (Lowi 1992). While disagreeing at many points with Lowi's account of the development of political science and with his critiques of the currently “hegemonic” subfields of “public opinion, public policy, and public choice,” I am led ultimately …
Leadership and Its Basis in Problems of Social Coordination
Leadership is a means by which social groups attempt to realize gains from cooperation, coordination, and efficient allocation. The attempt to achieve such gains gives rise to further, overarching problems of coordination. The latter problems are recurrent but are likely to vary from one situation to the next; this makes decentralized methods of solution especially difficult, and provides the ultimate reason leadership is needed, invented, and ac…
A Theory of Political Control and Agency Discretion
A major issue in the study of American politics is the extent to which electoral discipline also constrains bureaucrats. In practice, executive agencies operate with considerable independence from elected officials. However,the entire process of policy execution is a game among legislators.the chief executive. and bureaucratic agents. It includes the initial delegation of authority, the choice of policy alternatives,and opportunities for oversigh…
Reputation and Hegemonic Stability
We develop and explicate a game-theoretic model in which repeated play, incomplete information, and reputation are major elements. A significant advance of this model is the way it represents cooperation under incomplete information among rational actors of different sizes. The model is used to formalize certain aspects of the "theory of hegemonic stability." It shows that the "dilemma" or "limits" of hegemonic stability look like natural attribu…
Reputation and legislative leadership
The Value of Biased Information
Typically, political decision making involves the concomitant problem of deciding how to use advice. Advice can reduce uncertainty about outcomes, but it is often costly to obtain and assimilate, and is itself subject to uncertainty and error. This paper explores how a rational decision maker uses imperfect advice. Using only the assumption of utility maximization, along with a specification of exactly how knowledge and advice are "imperfect," it…
Robustness of the Multidimensional Voting Model
This analysis demonstrates that important implications of the multidimensional voting model are robust to significant changes in the model's assumptions. (1) If candidates in the model are allowed to be partially or totally interested in the election's policy outcomes, convergence to the median must still occur. (2) If candidates are uncertain about voters' responses, and therefore attempt to maximize the probability of winning, the candidate pla…
Presidential Coattails in Historical Perspective
Two methods are used to measure presidential coattails in House elections in various electoral periods since 1868. In the direct model, House votes are determined directly by presidential votes plus extraneous and local effects. This allows separate measurements of the seats-votes relationship (swing ratio) and of the behavioral connection between presidential and congressional voting. In the simultaneous determination model, votes for both offic…
Coattail Voting in Recent Presidential Elections
This article presents a method for analyzing the extent and strength of coattail voting in presidential elections. This method allows the authors to estimate the magnitude of coattail voting and then to decompose this estimate into more "basic" elements. Estimates are given for presidential elections beginning with 1956.The determination of the coattail vote and its decomposition depend on the theory of the voting decision that is assumed. In thi…
Runaway Bureaucracy and Congressional Oversight
Attempts to reign-in runaway regulatory bureaucracy fail because the bureaucracy has all the important resources. The bureaucracy also holds the upper hand in policy-making because Congress has neither the time nor inclination to effect legislative control and oversight. The authors examine the travails of the Federal Trade Commission during the 1970s to show the blurred distinction between bureaucratic autonomy and legislative control
Presidential Influence in Congress. George C. Edwards III. Changing Patterns of Congressional Politics. Larry M. Schwab
Robustness of the Multidimensional Voting Model
This analysis demonstrates that important implications of the multidimensional voting model are robust to significant changes in the model's assumptions. (1) If candidates in the model are allowed to be partially or totally interested in the election's policy outcomes, convergence to the median must still occur. (2) If candidates are uncertain about voters' responses, and therefore attempt to maximize the probability of winning, the candidate pla…
The Value of Biased Information
Typically, political decision making involves the concomitant problem of deciding how to use advice. Advice can reduce uncertainty about outcomes, but it is often costly to obtain and assimilate, and is itself subject to uncertainty and error. This paper explores how a rational decision maker uses imperfect advice. Using only the assumption of utility maximization, along with a specification of exactly how knowledge and advice are "imperfect," it…
A Theory of Political Control and Agency Discretion
A major issue in the study of American politics is the extent to which electoral discipline also constrains bureaucrats. In practice, executive agencies operate with considerable independence from elected officials. However,the entire process of policy execution is a game among legislators.the chief executive. and bureaucratic agents. It includes the initial delegation of authority, the choice of policy alternatives,and opportunities for oversigh…
Presidential Coattails in Historical Perspective
Two methods are used to measure presidential coattails in House elections in various electoral periods since 1868. In the direct model, House votes are determined directly by presidential votes plus extraneous and local effects. This allows separate measurements of the seats-votes relationship (swing ratio) and of the behavioral connection between presidential and congressional voting. In the simultaneous determination model, votes for both offic…
Reputation and Hegemonic Stability
We develop and explicate a game-theoretic model in which repeated play, incomplete information, and reputation are major elements. A significant advance of this model is the way it represents cooperation under incomplete information among rational actors of different sizes. The model is used to formalize certain aspects of the "theory of hegemonic stability." It shows that the "dilemma" or "limits" of hegemonic stability look like natural attribu…
Coattail Voting in Recent Presidential Elections
This article presents a method for analyzing the extent and strength of coattail voting in presidential elections. This method allows the authors to estimate the magnitude of coattail voting and then to decompose this estimate into more "basic" elements. Estimates are given for presidential elections beginning with 1956.The determination of the coattail vote and its decomposition depend on the theory of the voting decision that is assumed. In thi…
Leadership and Its Basis in Problems of Social Coordination
Leadership is a means by which social groups attempt to realize gains from cooperation, coordination, and efficient allocation. The attempt to achieve such gains gives rise to further, overarching problems of coordination. The latter problems are recurrent but are likely to vary from one situation to the next; this makes decentralized methods of solution especially difficult, and provides the ultimate reason leadership is needed, invented, and ac…
Strategy and Sophisticated Voting in the Senate
This paper extends the theory of sophisticated voting to cover situations in which legislators lack complete information about both the agenda and about their colleagues' preferences. The voting on a 1986 U.S. Senate resolution to provide full-time television coverage of Senate proceedings serves as an illustration of the theory, as well as adding to the stock of sophisticated voting cases found in the literature. Our approach makes possible a fu…
Reputation and legislative leadership
Lowi's Critique of Political Science
Sometimes an emotional irritant can be intellectually productive and provocative. For me, this was the case with Theodore Lowi's APSA presidential address, reprinted in the American Political Science Review (Lowi 1992). While disagreeing at many points with Lowi's account of the development of political science and with his critiques of the currently “hegemonic” subfields of “public opinion, public policy, and public choice,” I am led ultimately …
Presidential Influence in Congress. George C. Edwards III. Changing Patterns of Congressional Politics. Larry M. Schwab
Runaway Bureaucracy and Congressional Oversight
Attempts to reign-in runaway regulatory bureaucracy fail because the bureaucracy has all the important resources. The bureaucracy also holds the upper hand in policy-making because Congress has neither the time nor inclination to effect legislative control and oversight. The authors examine the travails of the Federal Trade Commission during the 1970s to show the blurred distinction between bureaucratic autonomy and legislative control
Coattail Voting in Recent Presidential Elections
This article presents a method for analyzing the extent and strength of coattail voting in presidential elections. This method allows the authors to estimate the magnitude of coattail voting and then to decompose this estimate into more "basic" elements. Estimates are given for presidential elections beginning with 1956.The determination of the coattail vote and its decomposition depend on the theory of the voting decision that is assumed. In thi…
Presidential Coattails in Historical Perspective
Two methods are used to measure presidential coattails in House elections in various electoral periods since 1868. In the direct model, House votes are determined directly by presidential votes plus extraneous and local effects. This allows separate measurements of the seats-votes relationship (swing ratio) and of the behavioral connection between presidential and congressional voting. In the simultaneous determination model, votes for both offic…
The Value of Biased Information
Typically, political decision making involves the concomitant problem of deciding how to use advice. Advice can reduce uncertainty about outcomes, but it is often costly to obtain and assimilate, and is itself subject to uncertainty and error. This paper explores how a rational decision maker uses imperfect advice. Using only the assumption of utility maximization, along with a specification of exactly how knowledge and advice are "imperfect," it…
Robustness of the Multidimensional Voting Model
This analysis demonstrates that important implications of the multidimensional voting model are robust to significant changes in the model's assumptions. (1) If candidates in the model are allowed to be partially or totally interested in the election's policy outcomes, convergence to the median must still occur. (2) If candidates are uncertain about voters' responses, and therefore attempt to maximize the probability of winning, the candidate pla…
Reputation and legislative leadership
Reputation and Hegemonic Stability
We develop and explicate a game-theoretic model in which repeated play, incomplete information, and reputation are major elements. A significant advance of this model is the way it represents cooperation under incomplete information among rational actors of different sizes. The model is used to formalize certain aspects of the "theory of hegemonic stability." It shows that the "dilemma" or "limits" of hegemonic stability look like natural attribu…
A Theory of Political Control and Agency Discretion
A major issue in the study of American politics is the extent to which electoral discipline also constrains bureaucrats. In practice, executive agencies operate with considerable independence from elected officials. However,the entire process of policy execution is a game among legislators.the chief executive. and bureaucratic agents. It includes the initial delegation of authority, the choice of policy alternatives,and opportunities for oversigh…
Leadership and Its Basis in Problems of Social Coordination
Leadership is a means by which social groups attempt to realize gains from cooperation, coordination, and efficient allocation. The attempt to achieve such gains gives rise to further, overarching problems of coordination. The latter problems are recurrent but are likely to vary from one situation to the next; this makes decentralized methods of solution especially difficult, and provides the ultimate reason leadership is needed, invented, and ac…
Lowi's Critique of Political Science
Sometimes an emotional irritant can be intellectually productive and provocative. For me, this was the case with Theodore Lowi's APSA presidential address, reprinted in the American Political Science Review (Lowi 1992). While disagreeing at many points with Lowi's account of the development of political science and with his critiques of the currently “hegemonic” subfields of “public opinion, public policy, and public choice,” I am led ultimately …
William H. Riker
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Strategy and Sophisticated Voting in the Senate
This paper extends the theory of sophisticated voting to cover situations in which legislators lack complete information about both the agenda and about their colleagues' preferences. The voting on a 1986 U.S. Senate resolution to provide full-time television coverage of Senate proceedings serves as an illustration of the theory, as well as adding to the stock of sophisticated voting cases found in the literature. Our approach makes possible a fu…
The Strategy of Rhetoric
Strategic rationality and endogenous institutional change
Political science (14 works) · Law (13 works) · Economics (10 works) · Politics (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (6 works) · Law and economics (6 works) · Legislature (4 works) · Microeconomics (4 works)