Truth and Probability—Ironies in the Evolution of Social Choice Theory

Social choice theory explores the ways in which individual preferences or choices translate into group choices. One of the most devastating discoveries of social choice theory is sometimes known as the voting paradox, brought back to modem consciousness by economist, Kenneth Arrow, in his famous work entitled Social Choice and Individual Values. Roughly stated, the paradox is that voting in situations involving more than a simple, binary choice will not always reveal the true decision of a decision-making body. The motivation for this Article is to understand how and why, having discovered the voting paradox in 1785, Condorcet actually became a more ardent believer in democratic decision making in later writings until his unfortunate death in 1794. More importantly, this Article examines Condorcet\u27s discovery of the voting paradox in the larger context of his life\u27s work to determine what solutions to the paradox he might have seen that modem social choice theorists and the legal literature have not fully explored. Part II of this Article briefly describes the history and implications of social choice theory and the famous voting paradox. Part III first offers a general picture of Condorcet\u27s life and work. It then explores the connections between the philosophies of Condorcet, Rousseau and the more modem civic republican traditions. Part IV takes a closer look at Condorcet\u27s original decision-making theory. Part V uncovers many civic republican themes within the context of the larger body of Condorcet\u27s work and uses these themes to explore what his work might contribute to the modem discourse

Social Choice and Just Institutions: New Perspectives

It has become accepted that social choice is impossible in absence of interpersonal comparisons of well-being. This view is challenged here. Arrow obtained an impossibility theorem only by making unreasonable demands on social choice functions. With reasonable requirements, one can get very attractive possibilities and derive social preferences on the basis of non-comparable individual preferences. This new approach makes it possible to design optimal second-best institutions inspired by principles of fairness, while traditionally the analysis of optimal second-best institutions was thought to require interpersonal comparisons of well-being. In particular, this new approach turns out to be especially suitable for the application of recent philosophical theories of justice formulated in terms of fairness, such as equality of resources.social welfare, social choice, fairness, egalitarian-equivalence

Social Choice and Just Institutions:New Perspectives

It has become accepted that social choice is impossible in absence of interpersonal comparisons of well-being. This view is challenged here. Arrow obtained an impossibility theorem only by making unreasonable demands on social choice functions. With reasonable requirements, one can get very attractive possibilities and derive social preferences on the basis of non-comparable individual preferences. This new approach makes it possible to design optimal second-best institutions inspired by principles of fairness, while traditionally the analysis of optimal second-best institutions was thought to require interpersonal comparisons of well-being. In particular, this approach turns out to be especially suitable for the application of recent philosophical theories of justice formulated in terms of fairness, such as equality of resources.social choice, theories of justice

Voces Populi and the Art of Listening

The strategy most damaging to many preferential election methods is to give insincerely low rank to the main opponent of one’s favorite candidate. Theorem 1 determines the 3-candidate Condorcet method that minimizes the number of noncyclic profiles allowing this strategy. Theorems 2, 3, and 4 establish conditions for an anonymous and neutral 3-candidate single-seat election to be monotonic and still avoid this strategy completely. Plurality elections combine these properties; among the others "conditional IRV" gives the strongest challenge to the plurality winner. Conditional IRV is extended to any number of candidates. Theorem 5 is an impossibility of Gibbard-Satterthwaite type, describing 3 specific strategies that cannot all be avoided in meaningful anonymous and neutral elections.Preferential Election methods; Plurality Election methods

Theories of referendum and the analysis of agenda-setting.

The referendum is often considered to be a form of direct democracy, and is often justified in terms of results representing the will of the majority. This view is disputable for three reasons: i) based on the results of social choice theory, it may be argued that the outcomes of referendums may be arbitrary and open to various interpretations; ii) it is debatable what the role of popular majorities should be in decision-making; many theorists of democracy think that unchecked majority rule should not prevail; iii) because of the differences in agenda-setting, there is considerable functional variation between referendums. Different forms of referendums have also been justified by different theoretical arguments: popular initiatives have been promoted by radical democrats, whereas referendums used as a check on legislature have been supported by 'Madisonian' democrats. In the analysis of agenda-setting it is important to distinguish i) how and by whom the referendum is initiated and ii) on what kind of issues they may be held. The influence of the referendum on the political agenda depends on whether the referendum is initiated by representatives (ad hoc or optional referendum); or by a certain number of citizens (popular initiative); or whether it is a check on laws passed by the parliament (mandatory, suspensive and abrogative referendums). Furthermore, these distinctions are important for understanding the strategic character of referendums, i.e. the strategic use of optional referendums by the representatives (parliamentary parties, president etc.), or the representatives' anticipation and reaction to the possibility of the other forms of referendums. Referendum in 22 democracies are classified, and their 'functional properties' (Smith 1976) are analysed. In order to get a more precise picture on how referendums function as a part of political systems and how political actors use the referendum, three cases, Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland, are analysed. Although the idea of giving the people a say is the common element of all forms of referendums, the differences between agenda-setting institutions explain why, how and under whose control 'the people's voice' is heard

Experimental Democracy - Collective Intelligence for a Diverse and Complex World

My dissertation is motivated by the following observation: while we care very much about the outcomes of the democratic process, there is widespread uncertainty about ex ante how to produce them - and quite often there is also disagreement and uncertainty about what they are in the first place. Consequently, unless we have a definite idea what "better decision-making" might be, it is not obvious which institutional reforms or changes in democratic structures would actually promote it. Democracy is a wide concept, and not all institutional constellations and rules and regulations that can be called democratic function equally well. In this dissertation therefore I offer a specific model of democracy - "Experimental Democracy" - that unites the view that the quality of decisions matter, with taking into account the circumstances of uncertainty and disagreement that define political problems. On this account, a desirable political mechanism is one that realizes an experimental method of policy-making directed at solving problems, such that we can expect it to make progress over time, even though we cannot rule out that it will get things wrong - possibly even frequently. I also show how democracy may best realize such an experimental method, and which particular institutional features of democracy could serve this purpose. The argument in the dissertation proceeds as follows. In the first part I develop a theory of the justifiability of political authority in the sense outlined above: a theory that is sensitive to the outcome concerns that many people share, but recognizes the fundamental disagreement surrounding this question. I establish that instrumental considerations should be of crucial importance when we evaluate political authority. Here I argue against pure proceduralist theories that see the outcome dimension as secondary. However, the facts of disagreement and uncertainty about the ends of politics, as well as concrete policy, do seem to pose a problem for any instrumental justification. In response I outline a pragmatic or experimental theory of political authority, which focuses precisely on the capacity of a political procedure to solve political problems under uncertainty. Just as in many other fields of inquiry experimentation and adaptation are seen as the adequate responses to uncertainty, I argue, an experimental and adaptive mode of policy-making is the best response to political uncertainty. In the second part I answer the question which form of democracy would best realize the ideal of experimental policy-making. Subsequently, we should evaluate democratic institutions mainly by their capacity to enable successful experimentation and adaptation. Here, contrary to popular "wisdom of crowds" arguments, I argue that since no single decision procedure can be expected to be reliable across the board, a justified political system may have to employ a plurality of first-order decision-making mechanisms. However, as I show for this to work, these mechanisms must be subject to effective democratic control. The key function of democratic institutions here is that of feedback, in order to enable successful adaptation. Finally, I offer some concrete examples how the functional requirements of a successful experimental strategy of policy-making can be institutionally realized within democratic systems

Democracy after Deliberation: Bridging the Constitutional Economics/Deliberative Democracy Divide

This dissertation addresses a debate about the proper relationship between democratic theory and institutions. The debate has been waged between two rival approaches: on the one side is an aggregative and economic theory of democracy, known as constitutional economics, and on the other side is deliberative democracy. The two sides endorse starkly different positions on the issue of what makes a democracy legitimate and stable within an institutional setting. Constitutional economists model political agents in the same way that neoclassical economists model economic agents, that is, as self-regarding, rational maximizers; so that evaluations of democratic legitimacy and stability depend on the extent to which the design of institutional rules and practices maximize individual utility by promoting efficient schemes of collective choice. Deliberative democrats, on the other hand, understand political agents as communicative reason-giving subjects who justify their preferences and positions on issues that jointly affect them in a process of consensus-directed discourse, or deliberation; so that evaluations of democratic legitimacy and order depend on the degree to which institutional norms and practices promote deliberation and draw upon deliberated public judgment. I argue that despite the numerous incompatibilities between constitutional economics and deliberative democracy—which amount to a 'deep divide'—an opportunity to produce a genuine synthesis of the two approaches arises inasmuch as it is possible to overcome several points of opposition in their separate research programmes. The central thesis of the dissertation is that it is possible to construct a bridge spanning the divide between constitutional economists and deliberative democrats, and that Dewey and Bentley's transactional view can facilitate this bridge-building project. Pursuant to this end, the points of opposition between the v research programmes are mediated by way of five concepts which, on balance, favor deliberative democracy and its feasible institutionalization

Democracy after Deliberation: Bridging the Constitutional Economics/Deliberative Democracy Divide

This dissertation addresses a debate about the proper relationship between democratic theory and institutions. The debate has been waged between two rival approaches: on the one side is an aggregative and economic theory of democracy, known as constitutional economics, and on the other side is deliberative democracy. The two sides endorse starkly different positions on the issue of what makes a democracy legitimate and stable within an institutional setting. Constitutional economists model political agents in the same way that neoclassical economists model economic agents, that is, as self-regarding, rational maximizers; so that evaluations of democratic legitimacy and stability depend on the extent to which the design of institutional rules and practices maximize individual utility by promoting efficient schemes of collective choice. Deliberative democrats, on the other hand, understand political agents as communicative reason-giving subjects who justify their preferences and positions on issues that jointly affect them in a process of consensus-directed discourse, or deliberation; so that evaluations of democratic legitimacy and order depend on the degree to which institutional norms and practices promote deliberation and draw upon deliberated public judgment. I argue that despite the numerous incompatibilities between constitutional economics and deliberative democracy—which amount to a 'deep divide'—an opportunity to produce a genuine synthesis of the two approaches arises inasmuch as it is possible to overcome several points of opposition in their separate research programmes. The central thesis of the dissertation is that it is possible to construct a bridge spanning the divide between constitutional economists and deliberative democrats, and that Dewey and Bentley's transactional view can facilitate this bridge-building project. Pursuant to this end, the points of opposition between the v research programmes are mediated by way of five concepts which, on balance, favor deliberative democracy and its feasible institutionalization