Democracy and resilient pro-social behavioral change: an experimental study

• Published in: Social choice and welfare Vol. 47; no. 2; pp. 359 - 378
• Main Author: Kamei, Kenju
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer 01.08.2016; Springer Berlin Heidelberg; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Behavior; Behavioral changes; Cooperation; Decision making; Democracy; Democratization; Economic Theory/Quantitative Economics/Mathematical Methods; Economics; Economics and Finance; Effectiveness; Endowments; Experimentation; Experiments; Game Theory; Games; Income inequality; International Political Economy; Materials; Original Paper; P values; Policy making; Public Finance; Public goods; Sanctions; Social and Behav. Sciences; Social Policy; Studies; Voters; Voting; Voting behavior; Public Account; Posterior Belief; Treatment Subject; Contribution Behavior; Public Good Game
• ISSN: 0176-1714; 1432-217X
• DOI: 10.1007/s00355-016-0967-y

Both experimental and empirical studies have shown that democratically imposing a policy that encourages cooperation may increase its effectiveness by enhancing the voters' cooperation behavior. But, do those involved in the democratic decision-making process change their behavior when faced with an exogenously implemented rule? This paper experimentally shows that the voters that are involved in a successful democratic selection of a policy behave more pro-socially as consistent with recent studies. My experiment moreover shows that such a successful democratic imposition of the policy may increase the voters' level of cooperation even when the policy is undemocratically imposed.