I’ve joked before with people that I liken social science models to rock songs.  My actual mapping is horribly incomplete.  So I’ll set that chatter to the side.

That said, the practice of modeling, in my experience, is a lot like rock ‘n roll.

You give me a topic, and I’ll think for a minute, make an awkward joke to stall, and then say, “well…I think we can throw in a bit of Romer-Rosenthal, maybe a touch of Crawford & Sobel, plus a flourish of valence, and Voilà! … We have a model.” (Participants at EITM 2013 can vouch for this…for better or worse.)

But….I’m serious. Modeling is a delicate balance of divine insight and practice.  And, given the relative and regrettable scarcity of divinity in practice, more practice than insight.

Modeling requires balancing (1) a substantive question, (2) generality, (3) the finitude of time. It lies at the heart of both what are putatively purely-empirical and purely-theoretical enterprises (the only class of social science theory that is “not-putatively-but-actually-purely-and-absolutely-theoretical-and-therefore-unambiguously-correct-and-applicable” is social choice theory.)  Methodologists, game theorists—they all rightly make assumptions to get to the point of their argument.

This is ROCK AND ROLL: YOU HAVE TO FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT TO MODEL.

If I said, “tell me how to make a yummy dish,” you’d ask “what’s yummy?” If I, being as obstinate and/or distracted as I usually am, did not answer—you’d have to make some assumptions about what I might like. If you assumed that I liked what everybody else liked, you’d probably hand me “Joy of Cooking.”  On the other hand, if you assumed I asked because I’d looked in the Joy of Cooking and not found what I liked, you would appropriately presume that I wanted something other than “the normal,” and you’d then be  seen by the outside world as playing punk. You’d probably (rightly) take off-the-shelf tools, utilize standard analogies, and leverage structure that threatens few to provide me with a new conclusion. That’s punk.

[During the perhaps overly-artsy bass solo, let me confess that not all punk is good. But all punk is, tautologically, punk.]

…Cue big build, drum crescendo, and….harmonic ending that sends crowd into rhapsodic frenzy…

Ok, What I’m saying is a short thing: good (formal/stat/etc) modeling is punk: it takes “old” tools, “expected” tricks, and combines them to “make the house rock,” or “get the message across.”  (Lucky are those situations when “the house rocks to the message.”)

Does the Pixies anthem “Gouge Away” address every possible situation?  Is it robust to every ephemeral, existential robustness barrage one might throw at it?

Hell no. That’s why the phrase “holy fingers” is so haunting. After all, “holy fingers” are rare unless you count Chicken Fingers ™.

So, when you want to say “well, your explanation for that is just an example, I’ll just say `Get Over It.’ … And then I’ll be gone, making more noise pop, playing a flying Fiddle to the Quotidian.

With that, I leave you with this.

This post by Michael Moynihan, responding in part to this post by Thane Rosenbaum, asks how “free” free speech should be.  The question of discriminating between different forms of speech—based on questions such as “is it knowingly false,” “how likely is it to incite violence,” and “is it political”—is an instantiation of an aggregation problem, exactly the type of problem that motivates the analysis and arguments in the forthcoming book I penned with Maggie Penn, Social Choice and Legitimacy.

But, aside from the question of how one would (or could) construct meaningful and coherent “bounds” on “free” speech, I was led to think about the instrumental nature of speech by the following quote from Moynihan’s post (which includes a quote from Rosenbaum’s post):

“Actually, the United States is an outlier among democracies in granting such generous free speech guarantees. Six European countries, along with Brazil, prohibit the use of Nazi symbols and flags. Many more countries have outlawed Holocaust denial. Indeed, even encouraging racial discrimination in France is a crime. In pluralistic nations like these with clashing cultures and historical tragedies not shared by all, mutual respect and civility helps keep the peace and avoids unnecessary mental trauma.” So one would assume that racial discrimination has been dumped on the ash heap of history in France, considering racist thoughts and symbols have been made illegal. How, then, does one explain that the National Front, whose former leader Jean-Marie Le Pen was found guilty of Holocaust denial, is now the most popular party in the country?

The math of politics point here is both simple and arguably subtle.  Basically, speech limitations are not imposed at random, and citizens should draw inferences about the motivations of, and information held by, whoever imposed them.

Consider the classical “marketplace of ideas” justification for strong free speech rights.  In a nutshell, this argument says that free speech is socially beneficial because it does minimizes the probability that a “true” (and, by presumption, socially beneficial) argument will be prescreened or forestalled by speech limitations.  (Consider, for example, the creationism vs evolution debate.)

My argument here, though in favor of strong speech rights, is slightly different. Specifically, it focuses on constraints imposed by the government.  This is an important qualification.  In particular, democratic governments are in the end chosen or “produced” through collective action.  If “ideas matter” (as the marketplace justification justifiably presumes), then evaluating the policies of the government and its potential successors matter.  Then, the transmission of ideas between citizens might lead to changes in/pressures on the government.

Accordingly, if one presumes that governments prefer to maintain power, ceteris paribus, then a policy that discriminates between speech based on content can arguably be informative in its own right.

Here’s a quick sketch:  suppose that a government favors some policy that may or may not be socially suboptimal and people have variously informed opinions about the social optimality of that policy.

Suppose that people are prohibited from talking “negatively” about that policy.  If people don’t consider the government’s motivation to choose/support such a prohibition, then the prohibition would—for the sake of argument—tamp down dissidence regarding that policy.  However, if the citizens think about the government’s motivations—regardless of whether they be policy-based, reelection-focused, or a combination thereof—then the government’s imposition of the prohibition would justifiably lead to the citizens suspecting that not only was the policy in question more likely to be suboptimal, but also that the government does not have the best interests of the electorate at heart. (NO WAY!)

In short, all governments are at least practically dependent upon their citizens’ support. If speech “matters,” then governmental limits on speech—perhaps especially those accompanied by the purest of putative motives—should be viewed with suspicion.

Note that this logic gets even “stronger” once one considers the timing of the limitations: that is, if one thinks about a government considering the (per se) costly imposition of speech limitations that might potentially (in a naive world) mitigate agitation against the government, the fact that the government is willing to incur the costs of imposing such limitations in a particular policy area should make one consider whether the government was alerted to an increased frequency of individuals unhappy with the government in this realm.  This “strengthens” the conclusion about the effects of the ban—arguably mirroring the Le Pen example above—-because savvy citizens would infer that the imposition of a limitation on speech on a particular topic is itself indicative of citizen unrest on that issue.

With that quick post, I leave you with this reminder of the most eternal right.

The debt ceiling drama is inexorably drawing to its next installment, and the question remains: when and, more importantly, how will a deal get done?  To keep matters simple, President Obama and Congressional Democrats have stood by the long-standing pledge to not negotiate on the debt ceiling, but some Congressional Republicans have been pushing for concessions in return for a debt ceiling increase—in particular, approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.

The State Department released its final report on the environmental impact of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline (fact sheet here) last week.  In a nutshell, the report is a “win” for pipeline supporters.  The idea of a “Keystone approval in return for debt ceiling increase” deal is not new, of course.  What I want to discuss briefly is the procedural details of the deal and their strategic (electoral) implications.

A key question in this game is whether Congress explicitly attaches Keystone XL approval to the debt ceiling increase or not.  Congress could pass a combined bill, or perhaps an implicit deal will be struck: President Obama approves Keystone XL and Congressional Republicans approve a “clean” debt ceiling increase, without (too loudly) claiming a quid pro quo.

I have reason to suspect that President Obama is trying to set up exactly such a deal: he said in June that the criterion for approving the pipeline is that is “not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.”  The State Department report provides an argument that it won’t.  Furthermore, President Obama said that “the net effects of the pipeline’s impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project is allowed to go forward.”

However, White House press secretary Jay Carney said today that Obama’s decision on the pipeline would be free from “ideological or political influence.” And the current spin regarding Secretary of State Kerry is that (1) Obama has asked him for a recommendation on the project and (2) that Kerry may be conflicted regarding his principles and partisan motivations.

The strategic question here for my purposes today is

Does Obama value “not bargaining” over the debt ceiling—a signaling of resolve, etc. that I have touched upon in various other posts (such as here)—more than the potential gain from allowing moderate Democratic Senators to vote for a bill (perhaps with a debt ceiling increase too) mandating approval of the project? [1] [2]

With respect to the first point, I think all three sides (Democrats, Republicans, and Canadians) are playing a bit of a game of chicken: nobody wants to be seen as “giving in” if they don’t have to.  I won’t work this through in detail, but the basics of “chicken” as pretty simple: each player would prefer to look tough (not give in) and have one or both of the others give in.[3]  At the same time, each player would prefer to give in if they knew that neither of the others were going to give in.  The best case scenario in this situation, it seems, is the “win-win” scenario of (1) Obama looking “presidential” and “job-creating” by solemnly approving the Keystone project at the same time as (2) Congress passing a “dirty” debt ceiling increase that mandates approval of the pipeline.

The devil, of course, is in the details: the timing has to be managed appropriately so that neither side is “clearly” trying to save face.  I think this can be accomplished by having the Senate vote for a Keystone approval and clean debt ceiling increase separately, then have the House vote under a special rule to approve both and send them to the President, during which time the President would unilaterally approve the pipeline, so that he could explain that he was essentially signing a clean debt ceiling increase.

Will it work out this way?  Oh, I’m sure it will be different.  But with the benefit of being “up close” in temporal terms, I would be somewhat surprised if we don’t see action on both the debt ceiling and the Keystone project in the next week.

With that, I leave you with this.

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[1] In 2012, a majority of the Senate voted in favor of such an approval, though it failed to get the 60 votes required to move forward.

[2] I thought about discussing why Obama might want a visible and positive Kerry recommendation, versus why he might want a negative and visible one.  The basics of one such argument are provided by my colleague Randy Calvert’s seminal article from 1985, entitled “The Value of Biased Information.”  I’ll come back to this argument at another time, I’m sure.  (And, to be honest, I have already stood on Randy’s shoulders elsewhere.)

[3] Usually, “Chicken” is described as a two-player game.  With more than 2 players, it becomes clear that Chicken is really just “private provision of a public good,” or the “who takes the trash out game.”  This is not the same as the Who Let The Dogs Out? game, which has no pure strategy equilibria (Baha Men (2000)).

All is not well in Thaliand, where the opposition Democrat Party is calling for its supporters (some of whom have been actively protesting for months now) to boycott today’s parliamentary elections.

Boycotting elections is not uncommon: indeed, opposition parties have recently boycotted elections in Bangladesh and the main Islamist opposition party is calling for a boycott of upcoming elections in Algeria. The point of this post is, from a strategic standpoint, why would a party call for its supporters to not only not vote for it, but to not vote at all? [1]

I will discuss two theories that can justify election boycotts.  The first concerns the opposition party’s strength, and the second concerns the ramifications of an election result being overturned.  In general, the two are distinguished by whether the boycotting party expects to “win” the election or not.

In both cases, to make the stories succinct, suppose that some proposed “reform” is the main political issue and, without any loss of generality, let’s suppose that the ruling party is proposing the reform and the boycotting party opposes it. (This labeling doesn’t matter, but keeps the language simple.)  I’ll start with “opposition party strength” explanation.

I’m So Popular…Nobody Showed Up.  For the first explanation, suppose that the opposition party expects that it will lose the election—it suspects its supporters are outnumbered by the other party, and suppose that the ruling party will press ahead with the reform if it believes that (say) 60% of the citizens support the reform.

If the opposition party does not boycott, and the ruling party wins with (say) 62% of the vote, then the ruling party will proceed with the reform.  The opposition party loses both electorally and in policy terms.

If the opposition party does boycott, then, while the ruling party will still win, the election result is less informative about the true latent support for the reform.  In particular, as opposed to the baseline case—where abstention by a voter is more than likely due to indifference about (say) the reform—each “non-vote” might represent opposition to the reform.  Thus, boycotting the election can lead to the ruling party being less certain about the underlying support for the reform and either modifying, or demurring from, the reform. [2]

Notice that this justification is based on signaling, and the logic is clearest when there is essentially no hope for the opposition party to win the election.  If the opposition party might win (i.e., it has nearly the same number of supporters as the ruling party), then it must trade-off the potential increased probability of stymieing the reform (in the case of a loss) against the reduced probability of both winning office and stymieing reform.  The second justification is more applicable when the opposition party suspects that the election won’t matter in any event.

It Didn’t Have to Play Out This Way. Sadly, election results are not sacrosanct.  Suppose that the opposition party suspects that, if it wins the election, the ruling party might disregard the election result and impose the reform anyway.  Such an undemocratic move might lead to various ancillary “bad” things unrest and/or a coup.  To keep it simple just suppose that the opposition party prefers the reform to be implemented after being “ratified” (even in a boycotted election) rather than implemented against a contrary election result.  In this case, because voting is costly, voting for the ruling party is otherwise distasteful, or for the purpose of recording an implicit score of (non-)support for the reform, the opposition might benefit from boycotting precisely when it suspects it might “win” the election. [3]

Elections Aren’t Just About Winning. Each of the arguments sketched out above rely on a key characteristic of elections: they aren’t the end of the game.  Rather, an election results is always to some degree a signal about the electorate’s preferences about the issues being confronted at that time.  Of course, the arguments also highlight how the proper interpretation of the “signal sent” by an election result need not be straightforward: as is usual, the fact that something might serve as a signal can infect the incentives of those sending it (in this case the opposition party) in counterinitutive ways (for example, see this point here).

More generally, the arguments provide two alternate routes to understand the legitimating power of participation.  That is, many people understandably say that free, open, and active elections are a foundation of a healthy and legitimate government.  This argument is often (to me, at least) based on the idea that people don’t want to participate in something that they don’t feel connected to and/or “served well by.”  This isn’t a silly argument—it does have a self-enforcing quality that is reminiscent of equilibrium.  But even if one is happy to accept that logic as “just so,” the next step is to examine incentives that logic provides to political actors in pursuit of policy and office.

With that, I leave you with this.

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[1] Especially in multiparty systems (especially with nontrivial electoral “thresholds” for representation and/or public financing), there are clear reasons for a party to call for it supporters to vote for a different party.  This phenomenon, known colloquially as strategic voting, is about coordination, and I will note it and set it to the side: strategic voting does not justify abstention unless there is some type of quorum/participation requirement.

[2] I’ll keep moving, but a moment’s thought suggests that, in some circumstances, this argument also suggests an incentive for the boycotting party to call for a boycott but send some of its supporters to the polls anyway.  The details are a bit complicated, and such an incentive (or, “comparative static of the ruling party’s beliefs as a function of the actual turnout”) might not work out in equilibrium, because the ruling party’s inferences get complicated and depend upon what it knows/believes about the opposition party’s gambit in this regard.  Nonetheless, it is a neat possibility.  TO ME.

[3] One could embellish this argument quite easily (to account for smaller parties also subscribing to its logic) by having the opposition party increasingly dislike the reform being implemented over larger proportions of votes “against” the reform.