Bundling (public choice)

Bundling, in public choice, occurs in republics. The electorate, rather than voting on each individual piece of legislation, must choose among a set of candidates (or parties) for the legislature. In so doing, they accept or reject each individual candidate or party and their "bundle" of positions on various issues. Thus, unless a voter is electing himself to office, there may be no candidate who perfectly reflects his views on all the issues of importance to him; and it becomes necessary to prioritize what issues are most important and choose a candidate accordingly. Another form of bundling occurs in races where the candidate has a running mate who is elected on the same ticket, as in the U.S. Presidential elections.

It is essentially a variant of product bundling; each candidate and party is marketed as a product comprising a bundle of positions and attributes. In party-list proportional representation (particularly closed list variants), bundling may be especially pronounced, as voters select an entire slate of party candidates rather than choosing individual candidates, and thus lack the option to select one candidate of a party and not another. Robert Cooter's "The Strategic Constitution" notes that when voters' demand for a party is inelastic, the party will tend to nominate candidates based more on loyalty than on popularity: "Thus, monopoly power of a party decreases the demand of its leaders for loyalty." [cite book|title=The Strategic Constitution|author=Cooter, Robert|pages=180|year=2000|publisher=Princeton University]

Bundling in political economy is a separate concept from bundling of donations in campaign finance.

Methods of counteracting

In the corporate world, this problem is dealt with through proxy voting, in which each shareholder can appoint a specific individual to represent him (this appointment being unaffected by who anyone selects as their proxy). Theoretically, a direct democracy would eliminate this problem, as there would be no need to accept a candidate and their bundle of positions. Nonetheless, members of a coalition might find the need to make compromises with their coalition-partners in order to maintain their cohesive group and stay in control. In countries that use proportional representation, single transferable vote can also allow voters to debundle candidates from their parties.

In a voluntary community, market forces provide an alternate set of safeguards, as different communities compete to provide bundles of services at quality and prices that consumers will buy. Such forces already influence property values in communities that have governments, but there is typically a disconnect between governmental authorities' incentives (such as salary) and the property values and other economic indicators of a community's attractiveness to buyers.

References