Question

1- What is the median voter model? Why might it not work?

2- What does the Marxian approach to political economy contribute to our understanding?

3- What is Arrow's Impossibility theorem?

Answer 1

1. In median voter theorem, suppose there are two parties in a country and each one of them have their own agenda's and their own views of motivating people.

both the parties have their views to choose from, suppose view 1 and view 2. the people who support view 1 will support the party who chooses view 1 and vice versa.

if a party is supportive of both the view i.e., the median point of both the views happens to win the election and who was on the extreme of one view will only get some votes. the median party will win because he will get the vote of view 1 voters as well as some votes of view 2 voters also.

It might not work because?

1. Virtually voters are not decisive.

2. Voters remain uninformed.

3.Less diversity of represented views.

4. Voters far from centre feel unrepresented and uninvolved.

3. Arrow's impossibility theorem says that no voting rules are perfect. if it is to be perfect then it has to satisfy six assumptions:-

• can produce a decision in any situation even in the case of multipeaked preferences.
• must rank all outcomes.
• must be consistent.
• Dictatorship is ruled out.
• must be responsive.
• society's rankings must depend on individual rankings.