World democracies widely differ in electoral rules, as well as in legislative, executive or legal institutions. Different institutional environments induce different mappings from electoral outcomes to the distribution of power. We explore how these mappings affect voters' participation to an...

The governments of nearly all countries are major providers of primary and secondary education to their citizens. In some countries, however, public schools coexist with private schools, while in others the government is the sole provider of education. In this study, we ask why different...

Conventional wisdom and empirical academic research conclude that majority Black districts decrease Black representation by increasing conservatism in Congress. However, this research generally suffers from three limitations: 1) too low a level of aggregation 2) lack of a counterfactual and 3)...

One of the motivations for voting is that one vote can make a difference. In a presidential election, the probability that your vote is decisive is equal to the probability that your state is necessary for an electoral college win, times the probability the vote in your state is tied in that...

Democratic systems are built, with good reason, on majoritarian principles, but their legitimacy requires the protection of strongly held minority preferences. The challenge is to do so while treating every voter equally and preserving aggregate welfare. One possible solution is lt;igt;Storable...

Under majoritarian election systems, securing participation and representation of minorities remains an open problem, made salient in the US by its history of voter suppression. One remedy recommended by the courts is Cumulative Voting (CV): each voter has as many votes as open positions and can...