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Judgment Aggregation By Quota Rules

Majority Voting Generalized

Department of Quantitative Economics, University of Maastricht, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands

Christian List

Department of Government, London School of Economics, London WC2A 2AE, UK, c.list{at}lse.ac.uk

The widely discussed `discursive dilemma' shows that majority voting in a group of individuals on logically connected propositions may produce irrational collective judgments. We generalize majority voting by considering quota rules, which accept each proposition if and only if the number of individuals accepting it exceeds a given threshold, where different thresholds may be used for different propositions. After characterizing quota rules, we prove necessary and sufficient conditions on the required thresholds for various collective rationality requirements. We also consider sequential quota rules, which ensure collective rationality by adjudicating propositions sequentially and letting earlier judgments constrain later ones. Sequential rules may be path dependent and strategically manipulable. We characterize path independence and prove its essential equivalence to strategy proofness. Our results shed light on the rationality of simple-, super-, and sub-majoritarian decision making.

Key Words: collective rationality • judgment aggregation • path dependence • quota rules • simple- • super- and sub-majority voting • strategy proofness

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Journal of Theoretical Politics, Vol. 19, No. 4, 391-424 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0951629807080775


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This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Web of Science (2) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Dietrich, F. Articles by List, C. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?