Before the parliamentary elections in 2018, the ruling party in Turkey, AKP, introduced a new apparentement provision in the electoral law, which allowed parties to make electoral alliances in order to meet the electoral threshold. We claim that this was an ex post mistake. AKP’s electoral engineering was motivated by their fear that its coalition partner, MHP, would not exceed the 10% threshold. While MHP actually met the threshold in the election, the opposition party, İP, failed to do so. Thanks to the new law, the votes for İP were not wasted, as would have happened under the old law. AKP less than 50% of seats and it consequently lost the parliamentary majority. Under the old electoral law, AKP would have won the majority. We use four alternative scenarios in order to estimate the seats and evaluate the political consequences of the unsuccessful electoral manipulation

This paper proposes a correction to the Flis-Słomczyński-Stolicki (2019, 2020) formula for countries with large variation among their districts in terms of political divisions. The Flis-Słomczyński-Stolicki formula (FSS formula) estimates seat allocations under the Jefferson-D’Hondt method by using national vote shares, as well as other parameters that are often readily available. However, the FSS formula does not yield precise estimates in those countries where there are independent candidates, special rights assigned to minority parties, signifi cant variation in district sizes, or an unequal distribution of votes due to ethnic or other regional divisions. Hence, I propose dividing the national distribution of votes into regions that satisfy the assumptions of the FSS formula within their district borders. By applying the FSS formula to regions consisting of historically and politically homogenous districts, I demonstrate that the formula’s estimates become signifi cantly more precise. For instance, by applying the regional correction to the 2018 Turkish Parliamentary elections, as well as other Turkish elections between 2007 and 2015, I show that the formula with the correction in three separate regions improves the Loosemore-Hanby goodness of fi t estimates from 2.1 to 3.41 percentage points (95% CI). Thus, the correction might signifi cantly improve the estimates of the FSS formula in various countries, including Spain, Peru, and Belgium.

: Traditional studies on political consequences of electoral systems were recognising electoral formula as the most important variable responsible for the consequences generated by a given electoral system. Meanwhile, recent studies suggest that the impact of this variable is defi nitely overrated. The article shows how the number of seats won in electoral districts affects the political parties and their candidates' chances of winning both in the proportional representation voting systems as well as in the majority and plurality ones. Using the examples of Polish parliamentary elections, the present paper both examines the thesis according to which larger electoral districts always increase proportionality and identifi es the conditions under which the thesis finds its application.

The presented research shows that consumer choice of product depends on the sequence in which products are presented. When they were presented according to decreasing prices the customer chose more expensive products than in the case of increasing prices. However this happens only in case of paying cash not voucher. In order to rule out the alternative reasons of this effect another study was conducted. Participants of the second study were randomly acquainted with 10 product brands. Then they chose one of ten products which were sorted according to their prices: decreasing or increasing.
Again, when paying cash, participants chose more expensive products when they were sorted according to decreasing prices. The results of second research suggest that the presented differences in choosing products cannot be explained by anchoring heuristic, the effect of priority, or incomplete information processing.

In the Polish public debate, one occasionally hears voices advocating the need for a significant change in the system of elections to Sejm, the Lower Chamber of Parliament – the objective of such changes would be to strengthen larger parties. As an example to follow, proponents of these changes cite Hungary, where the changes in electoral rules allowed the party in power to retain majority in the legislative despite reduction in popular support. Opponents of this solution see it as a manifest electoral manipulation. The aim of the present paper is to analyze how the “marginal only” changes to the structure of constituencies electing members of Sejm postulated in the political arena would affect electoral results of individual political groups and what would be the broader political consequences. The author pays particular attention to expected impact of such changes on the majority bonus for the winning party, possible government coalition variants, concentration of party system at parliamentary level and proportionality of elections. Simulation of allocation of seats in Sejm based on votes cast was prepared for three possible variants of the structure of Sejm constituencies, on the basis of historical data (for the 2011 and 2015 elections) and the predicted results of 2019 elections. Comparison of the simulated outcomes with the results obtained in the system currently in place allows to answer the main question posed.

W pracy podjęto pytanie, jak wiek wpływa na subiektywną ocenę prawdopodobieństwa oraz na podejmowanie decyzji ryzykownych. Przeprowadzono badanie na 140 osobach w wieku od 6 do 22 lat. Wyniki pokazały, że dzieci w wieku 6–10 lat nie były w stanie różnicować prawdopodobieństw. Dopiero wśród dzieci 11–13-letnich zaczyna się pojawiać rozróżnianie prawdopodobieństw, choć tylko w sytuacjach zysku. Zaobserwowano także tendencję do przeszacowywania prawdopodobieństw wygranej (w loteriach z możliwą wygraną) oraz prawdopodobieństw straty (w loteriach z możliwą stratą) zarówno przez dzieci, jak i dorosłych. Badanie wykazało również, że wiek badanych ma wpływ na podejmowanie ryzyka. Dorośli wykazują większą awersję do ryzyka w dziedzinie zysków niż strat, natomiast u dzieci tendencja jest odwrotna. W związku z tym, że najmłodsze dzieci nie rozumieją pojęcia prawdopodobieństwa, przy podejmowaniu wyborów nie są wrażliwe na zmianę prawdopodobieństwa, a co za tym idzie także na zmianę wartości oczekiwanej. Wśród dzieci najmłodszych na ryzykowne wybory nie miały wpływu ani wielkość wygranej/straty, ani prawdopodobieństwo. U dzieci 9–10-letnich znaczenie miała wyłącznie wielkość wygranej/straty. Natomiast u starszych dzieci (11–13-letnich) oraz osób dorosłych wpływ ma zarówno wielkość wygranej/straty, jak i prawdopodobieństwo, a także ich kombinacja (wartość oczekiwana).

The presented experiments are aimed at determining: (1) whether risk perception and risk acceptance are two distinct psychological processes and (2) how aspirations affect each process. It has been tested whether risk is independent of and preferences are depend on aspirations. In Experiment 1 72 employees of a high-tech company were presented with pairs of risky projects. The aspiration level was defi ned as the target return on the project and was set through an explicit instruction. In Experiment 2 93 bridge players were presented with pairs of contracts – one a sure thing and the other a risky one. The aspiration level was relatedto the team IMP points after the fi rst part of a knockout tournament and was set through an instruction. In both experiments with a between-subject design, two different aspiration levels were set for each group. All respondents were asked to judge riskiness of presented options and to select one. The results indicate that risk perception is insensitive to changes in aspirations, but preferences are. This supports distinctness of risk perception and risk acceptance.

The paper presents issues concerning oceanic games. The theorems, which have been discussed, make it possible to apply Shapley-Shubik index to games with infinite number of players. Social interpretations of the presentedmodel have also been shown. Determinants of bandwagon effect observed in social reality have been described in detail. Results of applying oceanic gamesmodel to the analysis of last pre-election competition between Barack Obamaand Hillary Clinton have been presented.

The article presents an analysis of the effects of the list apparentment institution introduced in the electoral rule for the sejmik of voivodship (regional council) and of some other changes which also had significant consequences. The effect analysis of these institutional solutions required primarily a comparison of specific political parties’ election results with the results these parties would have got under the „old” electoral rule, assuming no change in voters’ preferences resulting from the change in law. The electoral rule amendment had a significant impact on the results of specific parties, as measured by the number of mandates gained. Then, the authors investigated a number of alternative coalition strategies available to political parties, elaborating on the issue of effectiveness in actions undertaken by collective actors such as political parties. The authors proved that the results of the elections concerned depended on coalition strategies, rather than on election rules. Some players in the electoral game failed to achieve effectiveness in the attainment of the ultimate objective, i.e. to maximise the number of mandates gained, but the assessment of effectiveness provides different results if we assume that an important objective (though not equally important) was to maximise the results of the relevant bloc formed by apparentment. A matter of concern in the new electoral rule is the violation in 26% of constituencies of the monotonny criterion in the distribution of mandates resulting from the distribution of votes. In their concluding remarks, the authors put forward a proposal for a change in the electoral rule that better reflects the profiles of individual preferences in the social choice, while maintaining the apparentment institution.

Postulat reformy systemu wyborczego poprzez wprowadzenie wyborów większościowych jest od lat obecny w dyskursie publicznym. Wybory większościowe, w opinii ich zwolenników, mają z jednej strony wzmocnić pozycję wyborców, głosujących bezpośrednio na osoby, a nie partie, z drugiej zaś, poprzez doprowadzenie do powstania systemu dwupartyjnego, zwiększyć efektywność rządów, przy jednoczesnym zapewnieniu wyborcom realnej możliwości oceny programu rządowego przed wyborami i usunięcia niepopularnego rządu po końcu kadencji. Aby jednak możliwe było osiągnięcie tych celów, spełnione muszą być także inne przesłanki, umożliwiające wykrystalizowanie się efektywnego systemu dwupartyjnego; w przeciwnym przypadku system większościowy może skutkować niestabilnością polityczną i napięciami związanymi z nieadekwatną reprezentacją istotnych grup społecznych. Rozwiązaniem alternatywnym dla wprowadzenia wyborów większością względną w jednomandatowych okręgach wyborczych (tzw. FPTP) może być zastosowanie innych metod większościowych lub quasi-proporcjonalnych, które mając niektóre z zalet FPTP nie mają niektórych z jego wad.