Endogenous enfranchisement when groups' preferences conflict

In their seminal paper, Aumann, Kurz, and Neyman found the surprising resul t that the choice of levels of public goods in a democracy is not affected by the distribution of voting rights. This implies that groups of individua ls may not value the franchise. This conclusion, however, does not correspo nd to what we commonly observe. We propose a new model to address the quest ion of enfranchisement. The main feature of our model is that it takes into account natural affinities, such as religion or class, that may exist betw een voters. This allows us to show that while individuals may not value the vote, they nonetheless value the franchise. We also show that in the prese nce of nonconvexities, it is more likely that the group in power will grant the franchise when preferences are severely opposed.