Rousseau's Anti–Agenda-Setting Agenda and Contemporary Democratic Theory

2005 ◽  
Vol 99 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN T. SCOTT
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Majority Rule ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Preference Aggregation ◽  
Democratic Principle ◽  
Legislative Initiative ◽  
Democratic Principles

In his recent article, “Rousseau on Agenda-Setting and Majority Rule” (2003), Ethan Putterman examines how the democratic principle of popular majority rule might be reconciled with agenda-setting by legislative experts through an analysis of Rousseau's political theory. He argues that Rousseau accomplishes this reconciliation through a novel separation of powers between the legislative and the executive powers where the sovereign people delegates the exclusive power to initiate laws to the executive. Putterman thereby identifies as a solution to the problem of democratic self-legislation what Rousseau sees as the most important danger to it. At issue is not merely the correct interpretation of Rousseau's theory, for Putterman's argument raises far-reaching questions concerning the compatibility of democratic principles and institutions. After demonstrating that Putterman is incorrect that the sovereign people in Rousseau's state delegate the power of legislative initiative, I examine how Rousseau anticipates and addresses a related question central to contemporary democratic and social choice theory: the problem of preference aggregation through voting in the absence of agenda-setting institutions.

scholarly journals Prosociality in Majority Decisions: A Laboratory Experiment on the Robustness of the Uncovered Set

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Jan Sauermann
Keyword(s):  
Majority Rule ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Behavioral Model ◽  
Uncovered Set ◽  
Multiple Dimensions ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Empirical Perspective ◽  
Committee Decision Making ◽  
Policy Shifts

Abstract Social choice theory demonstrates that majority rule is generically indeterminate. However, from an empirical perspective, large and arbitrary policy shifts are rare events in politics. The uncovered set (UCS) is the dominant preference-based explanation for the apparent empirical predictability of majority rule in multiple dimensions. Its underlying logic assumes that voters act strategically, considering the ultimate consequences of their actions. I argue that all empirical applications of the UCS rest on an incomplete behavioral model assuming purely egoistically motivated individuals. Beyond material self-interest, prosocial motivations offer an additional factor to explain the outcomes of majority rule. I test my claim in a series of committee decision-making experiments in which I systematically vary the fairness properties of the policy space while keeping the location of the UCS constant. The experimental results overwhelmingly support the prosociality explanation.

Social Choice Theory and Legislative Institutions

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas R. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Social Choice ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Decision Rules ◽  
Spatial Models ◽  
Preference Aggregation ◽  
Simple Majority ◽  
Forthcoming Article ◽  
Aggregation Functions ◽  
Legislative Institutions

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Please check back later for the full article.Narrowly understood, social choice theory is a specialized branch of applied logic and mathematics that analyzes abstract objects called preference aggregation functions, social welfare functions, and social choice functions. But more broadly, social choice theory identifies, analyzes, and evaluates rules that may be used to make collective decisions. So understood, social choice is a subfield of the social sciences that examines what may be called “voting rules” of various sorts. While social choice theory typically assumes a finite set of alternatives over which voter preferences are unrestricted, the spatial model of social choice assumes that policy alternatives can be represented by points in a space of one or more dimensions, and that voters have preferences that are plausibly shaped by this spatial structure.Social choice theory has considerable relevance for the study of legislative (as well as electoral) institutions. The concepts and tools of social choice theory make possible formal descriptions of legislative institutions such as bicameralism, parliamentary voting procedures, effects of decision rules (e.g., supramajority vs. simple majority rule and executive veto rules), sincere vs. strategic voting by legislators, agenda control, and other parliamentary maneuvers. Spatial models of social choice further enrich this analysis and raise additional questions regarding policy stability and change. Spatial models are used increasingly to guide empirical research on legislative institutions and processes.

scholarly journals Reducing the Computational Time for the Kemeny Method by Exploiting Condorcet Properties

Mathematics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 1380
Author(s):  
Noelia Rico ◽  
Camino R. Vela ◽  
Raúl Pérez-Fernández ◽  
Irene Díaz
Keyword(s):  
Choice Theory ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Search Space ◽  
Exact Algorithms ◽  
Computational Time ◽  
Preference Aggregation ◽  
Life Problems ◽  
Ranking Aggregation

Preference aggregation and in particular ranking aggregation are mainly studied by the field of social choice theory but extensively applied in a variety of contexts. Among the most prominent methods for ranking aggregation, the Kemeny method has been proved to be the only one that satisfies some desirable properties such as neutrality, consistency and the Condorcet condition at the same time. Unfortunately, the problem of finding a Kemeny ranking is NP-hard, which prevents practitioners from using it in real-life problems. The state of the art of exact algorithms for the computation of the Kemeny ranking experienced a major boost last year with the presentation of an algorithm that provides searching time guarantee up to 13 alternatives. In this work, we propose an enhanced version of this algorithm based on pruning the search space when some Condorcet properties hold. This enhanced version greatly improves the performance in terms of runtime consumption.

On Sen's Liberal Paradox and its Reception within Political Theory and Welfare Economics

Politics ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pieter Vanhuysse
Keyword(s):  
Social Choice ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Welfare Economics ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Liberal Paradox

In this article, Amartya Sen's seminal proof of the impossibility of a Paretian liberal is briefly reviewed. I then discuss the reception of this alleged ‘liberal paradox’ within the fields of political theory and welfare economics. In particular, I examine the criticisms made by Brian Barry, and their wider implications for the field of social choice theory. It is argued that the various criticisms made on Sen's characterisation of liberty are fundamental, and that Sen's subsequent defence of his position is unconvincing. Moreover, there remain some wider doubts as to the usefulness of social choice theory's SWF approach to individual rights and freedoms.

Aggregation of Consumer Ratings of Online Products: Applying Social Choice Theory to Investigate the Cordorcet Efficiency of Mean Rule

2007 ◽  
Vol 51 (13) ◽  
pp. 837-840
Author(s):  
Xianjun Sam Zheng
Keyword(s):  
Sample Size ◽  
Social Choice ◽  
Majority Rule ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Sample Mean ◽  
Condorcet Efficiency ◽  
Size Number ◽  
Consumer Ratings ◽  
The Mean

Mean rule has been popularly used to aggregate consumer ratings of online products. This study applied social choice theory to evaluate the Condorcet efficiency of the mean rule, and to investigate the effect of sample size (number of voters) on the agreement or disagreement between the mean and majority rules. The American National Election Survey data (1968) were used, where three candidates competed for the presidency, and the numerical thermometer scores were provided for each candidate. Random sampling data with varied sample sizes were drew from the survey, and then were aggregated according to the majority rule, the mean rule, and other social choice rules. The results show that the sample winner of the mean rule agrees with the sample majority winner very well; as sample size increases, the sample mean rule even converges faster to the correct population majority winner and ordering than does the sample majority rule. The implications for using aggregation rules for online product rating were also discussed.

scholarly journals ”Hvorfor så meget stabilitet”? Stabiliserende elementer i det danske politiske system

Politik ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Malthe Munkøe
Keyword(s):  
Social Choice ◽  
Political System ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Preference Aggregation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Empirical Question ◽  
Strategic Manipulation ◽  
Collective Preference

Social choice research has shown that collective preference aggregation mechanisms under some conditions will produce arbitrary results, and are prone to endless cycles or strategic manipulation. is prompted Tul- lock (1981) to ask the question “Why so much stability”? at is to say, what explains the discrepancy between these results which implicates that politics is chaotic and random, and general understanding of how politics works in practice. e literature has identi ed a number of mechanisms, including “structure-inducing” in- stitutions that have a stabilizing e ect on the political system. As such it is ultimately an empirical question to what extent a political system is stable or not, and what institutions, norms and arrangements engender stability. is article considers the Danish political system from the point of view of social choice theory and discusses which institutions and arrangements work to stabilize it. 

Democratic Deliberation and Social Choice

2018 ◽  
pp. 462-489 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian List
Keyword(s):  
Social Choice ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Escape Route ◽  
Democratic Deliberation ◽  
Opinion Change ◽  
Negative Results ◽  
Collective Decisions ◽  
Shed Light

In normative political theory, it is widely accepted that democracy cannot be reduced to voting alone, but that it requires deliberation. In formal social choice theory, by contrast, the study of democracy has focused primarily on the aggregation of individual opinions into collective decisions, typically through voting. While the literature on deliberation has an optimistic flavour, the literature on social choice is more mixed. It is centred around several paradoxes and impossibility results identifying conflicts between different intuitively plausible desiderata. In recent years, there has been a growing dialogue between the two literatures. This paper discusses the connections between them. Important insights are that (i) deliberation can complement aggregation and open up an escape route from some of its negative results; and (ii) the formal models of social choice theory can shed light on some aspects of deliberation, such as the nature of deliberation-induced opinion change.

scholarly journals AGGREGATING MORAL PREFERENCES

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew D. Adler
Keyword(s):  
Social Choice ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Preference Aggregation ◽  
Moral Goodness ◽  
Aggregation Problem ◽  
Moral Facts

Abstract:Preference-aggregation problems arise in various contexts. One such context, little explored by social choice theorists, is metaethical. ‘Ideal-advisor’ accounts, which have played a major role in metaethics, propose that moral facts are constituted by the idealized preferences of a community of advisors. Such accounts give rise to a preference-aggregation problem: namely, aggregating the advisors’ moral preferences. Do we have reason to believe that the advisors, albeit idealized, can still diverge in their rankings of a given set of alternatives? If so, what are the moral facts (in particular, the comparative moral goodness of the alternatives) when the advisors do diverge? These questions are investigated here using the tools of Arrovian social choice theory.

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