Books & Book chapters

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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14417/1730

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Browsing Books & Book chapters by Author "Becher, Michael"

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    Organized Interests and the Mechanisms behind Unequal Representation in Legislatures
    (Cambridge University Press, 2023-12-07) Becher, Michael; Stegmueller, Daniel; Lupu, Noam; Pontusson, Jonas; https://ror.org/02jjdwm75
    How do organized interests contribute to unequal representation in contemporary democracies? We discuss two central channels: the selection of partisan legislators through elections and postelectoral influence via lobbying. We argue that these channels are potentially complementary strategies used by rational actors. Employing a game-theoretic model and simulations of interest group influence on legislative voting, we show that this logic may explain interest group strategies in unequal times. Our model implies that interest group strategies vary with party polarization and it highlights a challenge for empirical research on unequal representation and the literature on lobbying. Using statistical models commonly used in the literature to study biases in legislative voting or policy adoption, researchers are likely to overstate the relevance of elections as a channel through which groups affect legislative responsiveness and understate the role interest groups’ postelectoral influence. Our results stress the importance of theoretical models capturing the strategic behavior of political actors as a guiding light for the empirical study of mechanisms of unequal representation.
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    Polarización Política y Cumplimiento de las Medidas de Salud Pública en Tiempos de Covid-19
    (Fundación Alternativas, 2022) Becher, Michael; Menéndez González, Irene; Penadés de la Cruz, Alberto; Garmendia Madariaga, Amuitz; https://ror.org/02jjdwm75
    La pandemia de COVID-19 ha supuesto la mayor amenaza para la salud pública en un siglo. En España —y en muchos otros países— fue también una prueba de resistencia para la democracia. Ya antes de la pandemia, las instituciones democráticas y la democracia representativa se habían visto cuestionadas ante una creciente polarización política. Desde el comienzo de la pandemia, no obstante, ha aumentado la preocupación entre los académicos por el posible círculo vicioso entre la polarización política y la COVID-19.