Bargaining With the President: A Simple Game and New Evidence

Abstract

I employ a simple game to suggest the effects of information and expectations on bargaining strategies and responses. I make use of members' predispositions in order to identify actors likely to be bargaining. Using administration headcounts, I show that while very few members misrepresent their preferences during the coalition-building process, those who do represent a large proportion of the administration's core supporters, make their misrepresentations unsystematic to avoid a costly reputation, and convert more readily than those who are not. Strategic considerations drive conversion among bluffing members, while identification with the administration determines conversion among other members. Compromise generates few conversions. A conservative estimate of bluffing suggests that the conversion of bluffers decided more than half the administration's critical votes. I speculate about a model to account for the observed bluffing.