Power distribution in the Basque parliament using games with externalities (Q2202229)

The Basque parliament uses the plurality rule to elect the president of the autonomous regional government: first, every political group with representation in the chamber has the right to propose a candidate; next every deputy must vote in favor of one of the candidates or otherwise abstain. To be elected in the first ballot, one needs a majority of the chamber votes in favor. If there is no such candidate, a second ballot takes place 24 hours later and the candidate with more votes than any other candidate is elected. This voting procedure is not dichotomous -- it is intended to choose among many potential candidates -- and hence classic games are not appropriate to determine the power distribution in the Basque parliament. Therefore, the authors incorporate coalitional externalities to games, as introduced by Thrall and Lucas: n-person games in partition function form (1963). The authors consider two extensions of the Shapley-Shubik index, called the externality free index (EFI) and the average index, one extension of the Penrose-Banzhaf index, called the \(\Lambda\)-Banzhaf N index (where the N stands for normalized), one extension of the Deegan-Packel index (DGI) and one extension of the pubic good power index (PGI) to games with externalities and apply them to the seat distribution in Basque parliament since 1984. The authors conclude among others that the EFI seems to reward the largest party most, and that the two indices -- DGI and PG -- that only use minimal winning coalitions show power distributions quite different from the other three: in general, they distribute the power much more evenly. They also conclude that in most cases the real power of the largest party is higher than its share of seats and that the power of small parties is lower than their share of seats.