Logrolling
[1] In organizational analysis, it refers to a practice in which different organizations promote each other's agendas, each in the expectation that the other will reciprocate.
[4] Quid pro quo sums up the concept of logrolling in the United States' political process today.
If two neighbors had cut a lot of timber that needed to be moved, it made more sense for them to work together to roll the logs.
Here is an example of the term's original use: "A family comes to sit in the forest," wrote an observer in 1835; "Their neighbors lay down their employments, shoulder their axes, and come in to the log-rolling.
"[9]American frontiersman Davy Crockett was one of the first to apply the term to legislation: The first known use of the term was by Congressman Davy Crockett, who said on the floor (of the U.S. House of Representatives) in 1835, "my people don't like me to log-roll in their business, and vote away pre-emption rights to fellows in other states that never kindle a fire on their own land.
"[10]Human beings, whether ignorant or informed, rational or irrational, logical or illogical, determine individual and group action through choices.
In America, political and economic decisions are usually made by politicians elected to legislative assemblies, and not directly by the citizenry (Buchanan and Tullock 1962[2]).
In The Calculus of Consent, James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock explore the relationship between individual choice in the voting process and in the marketplace, specifically within logrolling.
Logrolling vote trades, like any activity within the marketplace, must be mutually beneficial (Buchanan and Tullock 1962[2]).
Legislators who logroll within a small body, for example, the U.S. House or Senate, have incentive to honor their IOU votes because they cannot have their reputations tainted if they wish to be effective politicians (Holcombe 2006[5]).
When people have ideologies at opposite ends of the political spectrum, it's difficult to ensure a simple majority, so buying a supermajority vote through logrolling may be the most cost effective (Buchanan and Tullock 1962[2]).
In the General Possibility Theorem, Kenneth Arrow argues that if a legislative consensus can be reached through a simple majority, then minimum conditions must be satisfied, and these conditions must provide a superior ranking to any subset of alternative votes (Arrow 1963[12]).
Logrolling creates a market within which votes are exchanged as a sort of currency, and thus, facilitates the political process that produces the highest valued outcomes (Holcombe 2006[5]).
Logrolling depends on the reality that the marginal benefit (or utility) of at least some elected officials, or the citizenry, will increase when the legislation is passed (Buchanan and Tullock 1962[2]).
When transaction costs are low and parties involved are perfectly informed, a mutually beneficial agreement will occur: whoever values the property the highest will end up with it.
The highest valued outcome is chosen by the legislature, regardless the member's ideological stance or political affiliation (Holcombe 2006[5]).
Logrolled votes transcend affiliations and party lines and become feasible outcomes preferred by a majority or winning coalition (Schwartz 1977[11]).
Congress voted to increase tariffs exponentially, which worked to push the United States from a stagnant recession into a plummeting depression (Irwin and Kroszner 1996[17]).
Strict party line votes suggest that partisan polarization in 1929 prevented the Smoot-Hawley bill from passing through Congress.
However, large bills, like the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, require an in depth knowledge of 1,000 plus pages.
Studies show that lobbying and political pressure exerted by special-interest groups are not atypical behavior in a modern democracy (Buchanan and Tullock 1962[2]).
Initially, maximizers will encourage other legislators to have the same selfish behavior because significant gains can be accrued in the short run.
Buchanan and Tullock state that within a system of maximizers, all individuals are worse off than if they had all adopted Kantian norms of behavior.
Somehow the citizens end up paying higher taxes than those who are not in a logroll system (Dalenberg and Duffy-Deno 1991[19] and Gilligan and Matsusaka 1995[20]).
In a system where logrolling is permitted, a third party may bear the cost of the project, rather than those who receive the full benefit of the legislation.
The logic of collective action shows that votes for bills are motivated by politicians and are determined by a simple majority (Olson 1971[21]).
Policymakers and congressmen have goals of power, and making their own mark in public policy, not pure aims of reelection (Dodd 1977[22]).
A skilled policy-oriented committee leader often seeks to exploit the goals of other members in order to construct legislation he or she will prefer (Arnold 1979[23] and Strahan 1989[24]).
In essence, logrolling is a legal way to manipulate voter preference toward either an efficient or an inefficient outcome that would not otherwise be enacted (Browning 1979[15]).
[26] Spy Magazine ran a feature entitled "Logrolling in Our Time" that cited suspicious or humorous examples of mutually admiring book jacket blurbs by pairs of authors.
