Condorcet Winners and the Paradox of Voting: Probability Calculations for Weak Preference Orders

1995 ◽  
Vol 89 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bradford Jones ◽  
Benjamin Radcliff ◽  
Charles Taber ◽  
Richard Timpone
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Computer Simulation ◽  
Social Choice ◽  
Individual Preferences ◽  
Weak Preference ◽  
The Social ◽  
Small Committee ◽  
Committee Decision Making ◽  
Preference Orders ◽  
Choice Literature

That individual preferences may he aggregated into a meaningful collective decision using the Condorcet criterion of majority choice is one of the central tenets of democracy. But that individual preferences may not yield majority winners is one of the classic findings of the social choice literature. Given this problem, social choice theorists have attempted to estimate the probability of Condorcet winners, given certain empirical or theoretical conditions. We shall estimate the probabilities of Condorcet winners and intransitive aggregate orders for various numbers of individuals with strong or weak preference orders across various numbers of alternatives. We find, using computer simulation, a stark contrast between these estimates assuming strong individual preferences and the estimates allowing for individuals' indifference between pairs of alternatives. In contrast to earlier work, which depends on the strong-preference assumption, we suggest that the problem is most acute for small committee decision making and least acute for mass elections with few alternatives.

Bargaining in Legislatures

1989 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 1181-1206 ◽  
Author(s):  
David P. Baron ◽  
John A. Ferejohn
Keyword(s):  
Social Choice ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Institutional Structure ◽  
The Social ◽  
Free Model ◽  
Sequential Nature ◽  
Choice Literature ◽  
Formal Rules

Bargaining in legislatures is conducted according to formal rules specifying who may make proposals and how they will be decided. Legislative outcomes depend on those rules and on the structure of the legislature. Although the social choice literature provides theories about voting equilibria, it does not endogenize the formation of the agenda on which the voting is based and rarely takes into account the institutional structure found in legislatures. In our theory members of the legislature act noncooperatively in choosing strategies to serve their own districts, explicitly taking into account the strategies members adopt in response to the sequential nature of proposal making and voting. The model permits the characterization of a legislative equilibrium reflecting the structure of the legislature and also allows consideration of the choice of elements of that structure in a context in which the standard, institution-free model of social choice theory yields no equilibrium.

Social Choice Theory and the Reconstruction of Elections: A Comment on Levesque's Analysis

1983 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 785-789 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Woolstencroft
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Choice ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Rule ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Individual Preferences

The import of social choice theory lies in its examination of the various choice rules available for the recording and weighing of preferences in an election and the consequences of those rules for democratic political life. A choice rule is a method for aggregating individual preferences into a collective determination. Choice rules vary in their capacities to maximize (and minimize) various values desired in a system of decision-making. They also vary in their capacities to reveal information about preferences.

scholarly journals Ordinal Theories and the Social Choice Analogy

2020 ◽  
pp. 57-76
Author(s):  
William MacAskill ◽  
Krister Bykvist ◽  
Toby Ord
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Choice ◽  
Borda Rule ◽  
Moral Uncertainty ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Right

We introduce and discuss the problems of intertheoretic incomparability and merely ordinal theories. We then introduce the analogy between decision-making under moral uncertainty and social choice, and explain how this analogy can help us to overcome these problems. The rest of the chapter is spent fleshing out how this idea can help us to develop a theory of decision-making under moral uncertainty that is applicable even when all theories under consideration are merely ordinal, and even when there is neither level-nor unit- comparability between those theories. We consider whether My Favourite Theory or My Favourite Option might be the right theory of decision-making under moral uncertainty in conditions of merely ordinal theories and incomparability, but reject both of these accounts. We defend the idea that, when maximizing choice worthiness is not possible, one should use the Borda Rule instead.

scholarly journals A Decision Support Tool for Agricultural Applications Based on Computational Social Choice and Argumentation

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 54-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikos Karanikolas ◽  
Pierre Bisquert ◽  
Patrice Buche ◽  
Christos Kaklamanis ◽  
Rallou Thomopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Choice ◽  
Food Packaging ◽  
Software Tool ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Decision Problems ◽  
Computational Social Choice ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
The Social ◽  
Agricultural Applications

In the current article, the authors describe an applied procedure to support collective decision making for applications in agriculture. An extended 2-page abstract of this paper has been accepted by the EFITA WCCA congress and this manuscript is an extended version of this submission. The problem the authors are facing in this paper is how to reach the best decision regarding issues coming from agricultural engineering with the aid of Computational Social Choice (CSC) and Argumentation Framework (AF). In the literature of decision-making, several approaches from the domains of CSC and AF have been used autonomously to support decisions. It is our belief that with the combination of these two fields the authors can propose socially fair decisions which take into account both (1) the involved agents' preferences and (2) the justifications behind these preferences. Therefore, this article implements a software tool for decision-making which is composed of two main systems, i.e., the social choice system and the deliberation system. In this article, the authors describe thoroughly the social choice system of our tool and how it can be applied to different alternatives on the valorization of materials coming from agriculture. As an example, that is demonstrated an application of our tool in the context of Ecobiocap European project where several decision problems are to be addressed. These decision problems consist in finding the best solutions for questions regarding food packaging and end-of-life management.

scholarly journals Agendas in legislative decision‐making

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 235-274
Author(s):  
Sean Horan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Choice ◽  
Broad Class ◽  
Structural Features ◽  
History Independence ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Social Choice Rules ◽  
Legislative Decision

Despite the wide variety of agendas used in legislative settings, the literature on sophisticated voting has focused on two formats: the so‐called Euro–Latin and Anglo–American agendas. In the current paper, I introduce a broad class of agendas whose defining structural features—history‐independence and persistence—are common in legislative settings. I then characterize the social choice rules implemented by sophisticated voting on agendas with these two features. I also characterize the rules implemented by more specialized formats (called priority agendas and convex agendas) whose structure is closely related to the prevailing rules for order‐of‐voting used by legislatures. These results establish a clear connection between structure and outcomes for a wide range of legislative agendas.

Reconsidering the Role of Political Argument in Democratic Politics

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Knight ◽  
James Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Choice ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Collective Decision ◽  
Collective Decision Making ◽  
Strategic Manipulation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Analytical Argument

This chapter examines three ways that political argument can affect democratic decision making and, thus, significantly mitigate the force of the social choice challenge. By engaging in political argument, relevant agents can settle the dimensions that, in any instance, structure their disagreements. This causal effect not only dampens the prospects that collective decision making will generate cyclical outcomes, it thereby reduces the opportunities for strategic manipulation that such instability presents. Once the analytical argument has established the possibility that voting, augmented by argument, could produce normatively legitimate decisions, the chapter considers two ways in which democratic argument can enhance the quality of such decisions: diversity and reflexivity.

Social Choice in an Islamic Economic Framework

1991 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-274
Author(s):  
Masudul A. Choudhury
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Choice ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
State Variables ◽  
Economic Framework ◽  
The Social ◽  
Individual Task ◽  
Islamic Economic

In this paper, the decision-making character of shura, the consultativedemocratic concept in an Islamic social order, will be shown to clearly definethe determination of both state variables (socioeconomic variables) and policyvariables and the simulative interactions between them. These variables willthen be shown to configure the consumption, production, and distributionmenus in an Islamic political economy. They will thus be shown as clearlydefined variables that help to formulate the social choice, the social welfarefunction, and the institutional decision-making problems in an Islamic politicoeconomicorder.Shuratic Decision Making in the Perspective ofOrganizational TheoryThe Islamic shuratic (i.e., based on shura) decision-making process isthe centerpiece of organhtional behavior in Islamic institutions. The followingis a technical explanation of this process in light of modem organizationaltheory:’(a) Shura is structured into representative decision makers fromvarious walks of life (“sharees”).(b) “The abstract nature of each individual task” is carried outby ijtihad and the interpretations and implementation of theShari’ah (Islamic law) to various socioeconomic problems ...

SOCIAL CHOICE AND THE ARROW CONDITIONS

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 269-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan F. Gibbard
Keyword(s):  
Social Choice ◽  
Social Preference ◽  
Preference Relation ◽  
Impossibility Result ◽  
Individual Preferences ◽  
System A ◽  
The Social ◽  
Liberum Veto

Arrow’s impossibility result stems chiefly from a combination of two requirements: independence and fixity. Independence says that the social choice is independent of individual preferences involving unavailable alternatives. Fixity says that the social choice is fixed by a social preference relation that is independent of what is available. Arrow found that requiring, further, that this relation be transitive yields impossibility. Here it is shown that allowing intransitive social indifference still permits only a vastly unsatisfactory system, a liberum veto oligarchy. Arrow’s argument for independence, though, undermines any rationale for fixity.

scholarly journals A deliberative solution to the social choice problem

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Mladenovic
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Choice ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Choice Problem ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
The Social

Is there a sense in which society makes rational decision in a democratic way that is similar to individual rational decision-making? Social choice theory claims that rational social choice is not possible. Or, at least, that if possible, then the social choice must be dictatorial. I shall present a deliberative solution to the social choice problem. This solution is called deliberative, because it is based on the assumptions of deliberative democracy.

scholarly journals Group choices seemingly at odds with individual preferences

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (7) ◽  
pp. 170232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michel-Olivier Laurent Salazar ◽  
Stamatios C. Nicolis ◽  
Mariano Calvo Martín ◽  
Grégory Sempo ◽  
Jean-Louis Deneubourg ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Periplaneta Americana ◽  
Individual Preference ◽  
Environmental Cues ◽  
Collective Decision Making ◽  
Individual Preferences ◽  
The Social ◽  
Result Aggregation ◽  
The Individual

Numerous studies have focused on the influence of the social environment and the interactions between individuals on the collective decision-making of groups. They showed, for example, that attraction between individuals is at the origin of an amplification of individual preferences. These preferences may concern various environmental cues such as biomolecules that convey information about the environment such as vanillin, which, for some insects, is an attractant. In this study, we analysed how the social context of the cockroaches of the species Periplaneta americana modifies preferences when individuals are offered two shelters, of which one is vanillin scented. One of the principal results of our study is that isolated individuals stay longer and more frequently in a vanillin-scented shelter, while groups choose more frequently the unscented one. Moreover, the proportion of sheltered insects is larger when the group selects the unscented shelter. Our experimental results and theoretical model suggest that the individual preference is not inverted when insects are in a group but, rather, the response to vanillin decreases the attraction between individuals. As a result, aggregation is favoured in the unscented shelter, leading therefore to a collective inversion.

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