IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jgames/v9y2018i2p29-d148247.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Luxembourg in the Early Days of the EEC: Null Player or Not?

Author

Listed:
  • Alexander Mayer

    (Department of Economics, University of Bayreuth, Universitätsstr. 30, 95447 Bayreuth, Germany)

Abstract

Voters whose yes-or-no decision never makes a difference to the outcome in a simple voting game are known as “null players”. Luxembourg’s role in the Council of Ministers during the first period of the European Economic Community (EEC) is often cited as a real-world case. The paper contrasts the textbook claim that Luxembourg was a null player with a more comprehensive picture of Luxembourg’s role in EEC’s voting system. The assessment of Luxembourg’s voting power is sensitive to the role played by the European Commission in the decision-making procedure and the measurement concepts underlying power evaluations.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexander Mayer, 2018. "Luxembourg in the Early Days of the EEC: Null Player or Not?," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-12, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jgames:v:9:y:2018:i:2:p:29-:d:148247
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/9/2/29/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4336/9/2/29/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Le Breton, Michel & Montero, Maria & Zaporozhets, Vera, 2012. "Voting power in the EU council of ministers and fair decision making in distributive politics," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 159-173.
    2. Baron, David P. & Ferejohn, John A., 1989. "Bargaining in Legislatures," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(4), pages 1181-1206, December.
    3. Ghintran, Amandine, 2013. "Weighted position values," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 157-163.
    4. Dan S. Felsenthal & Moshé Machover, 2008. "Further Reflections on the Expediency and Stability of Alliances," Springer Books, in: Matthew Braham & Frank Steffen (ed.), Power, Freedom, and Voting, chapter 3, pages 39-55, Springer.
    5. Roger B. Myerson, 1977. "Graphs and Cooperation in Games," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 2(3), pages 225-229, August.
    6. Herings, P.J.J. & van der Laan, G. & Talman, A.J.J. & Yang, Z., 2010. "The average tree solution for cooperative games with communication structure," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 626-633, March.
    7. Moshé Machover & Dan S. Felsenthal, 2002. "Annexations and alliances: When are blocs advantageous a priori?," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 19(2), pages 295-312.
    8. Drouvelis, Michalis & Montero, Maria & Sefton, Martin, 2010. "Gaining power through enlargement: Strategic foundations and experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 274-292, July.
    9. Herings, P. Jean Jacques & van der Laan, Gerard & Talman, Dolf, 2008. "The average tree solution for cycle-free graph games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 77-92, January.
    10. Stefan Napel & Mika Widgrén, 2006. "The Inter-Institutional Distribution of Power in EU Codecision," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 27(1), pages 129-154, August.
    11. Straffin, Philip Jr., 1994. "Power and stability in politics," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications, in: R.J. Aumann & S. Hart (ed.), Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 32, pages 1127-1151, Elsevier.
    12. Josep Freixas & Marc Freixas & Sascha Kurz, 2017. "On the characterization of weighted simple games," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 83(4), pages 469-498, December.
    13. Borm, P.E.M. & Owen, G. & Tijs, S.H., 1992. "On the position value for communication situations," Other publications TiSEM 5a8473e4-1df7-42df-ad53-f, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    14. Widgren, Mika, 1994. "Voting power in the EC decision making and the consequences of two different enlargements," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 1153-1170, May.
    15. Dennis Leech, 2003. "Computing Power Indices for Large Voting Games," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(6), pages 831-837, June.
    16. Dan S. Felsenthal & Moshé Machover, 1998. "The Measurement of Voting Power," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1489.
    17. Shapley, L. S. & Shubik, Martin, 1954. "A Method for Evaluating the Distribution of Power in a Committee System," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(3), pages 787-792, September.
    18. Madeleine o. Hosli, 1996. "Coallitions and Power: Effects of Qualified Majority Voting in the Council of the European Union," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(2), pages 255-273, June.
    19. Nicola Maaser & Alexander Mayer, 2016. "Codecision in context: implications for the balance of power in the EU," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 46(1), pages 213-237, January.
    20. Montero, Maria, 2006. "Noncooperative foundations of the nucleolus in majority games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 380-397, February.
    21. Banks, Jeffrey s. & Duggan, John, 2000. "A Bargaining Model of Collective Choice," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 94(1), pages 73-88, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. László Á. Kóczy, 2021. "Brexit and Power in the Council of the European Union," Games, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-10, June.
    2. Izabella Stach, 2022. "Reformulation of Public Help Index θ Using Null Player Free Winning Coalitions," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 317-334, April.
    3. Maaser, Nicola & Paetzel, Fabian & Traub, Stefan, 2019. "Power illusion in coalitional bargaining: An experimental analysis," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 433-450.
    4. Xavier Molinero & Maria Serna & Marc Taberner-Ortiz, 2021. "On Weights and Quotas for Weighted Majority Voting Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-25, December.
    5. Nicola Maaser & Fabian Paetzel & Stefan Traub, 2022. "Gender and Nominal Power in Multilateral Bargaining," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-25, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Le Breton, Michel & Montero, Maria & Zaporozhets, Vera, 2012. "Voting power in the EU council of ministers and fair decision making in distributive politics," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 159-173.
    2. Napel, Stefan & Nohn, Andreas & Alonso-Meijide, José Maria, 2012. "Monotonicity of power in weighted voting games with restricted communication," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 247-257.
    3. Eraslan, Hülya & McLennan, Andrew, 2013. "Uniqueness of stationary equilibrium payoffs in coalitional bargaining," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(6), pages 2195-2222.
    4. Le Breton, Michel & Montero, Maria & Zaporozhets, Vera, 2012. "Voting power in the EU council of ministers and fair decision making in distributive politics," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 159-173.
    5. Zaporozhets, Vera & García-Valiñas, María & Kurz, Sascha, 2016. "Key drivers of EU budget allocation: Does power matter?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 57-70.
    6. Le Breton, Michel & Lepelley, Dominique & Macé, Antonin & Merlin, Vincent, 2017. "Le mécanisme optimal de vote au sein du conseil des représentants d’un système fédéral," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 93(1-2), pages 203-248, Mars-Juin.
    7. Nicola Maaser & Alexander Mayer, 2016. "Codecision in context: implications for the balance of power in the EU," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 46(1), pages 213-237, January.
    8. Zaporozhets, Vera, 2015. "Power Distribution in French River Basin Committees," TSE Working Papers 15-558, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    9. Matthias Weber, 2014. "Choosing Voting Systems behind the Veil of Ignorance: A Two-Tier Voting Experiment," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 14-042/I, Tinbergen Institute.
    10. Di Giannatale, Paolo & Passarelli, Francesco, 2013. "Voting chances instead of voting weights," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 164-173.
    11. García-Valiñas, Maria A. & Zaporozhets, Vera, 2015. "Key-drivers of EU budget allocation: Does power matter?," TSE Working Papers 15-548, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    12. Michel Le Breton & Karine Van Der Straeten, 2017. "Alliances Électorales et Gouvernementales : La Contribution de la Théorie des Jeux Coopératifs à la Science Politique," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 127(4), pages 637-736.
    13. Vera Zaporozhets & Mar'ia Garc'ia-Vali~nas & Sascha Kurz, 2015. "Key drivers of EU budget allocation: Does power matter?," Papers 1512.01267, arXiv.org.
    14. Laruelle, Annick & Valenciano, Federico, 2008. "Noncooperative foundations of bargaining power in committees and the Shapley-Shubik index," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 341-353, May.
    15. Silvia Fedeli & Francesco Forte, 2001. "Voting Powers and the Efficiency of the Decision-Making Process in the European Council of Ministers," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 5-38, July.
    16. Liying Kang & Anna Khmelnitskaya & Erfang Shan & Dolf Talman & Guang Zhang, 2021. "The average tree value for hypergraph games," Mathematical Methods of Operations Research, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research (GOR);Nederlands Genootschap voor Besliskunde (NGB), vol. 94(3), pages 437-460, December.
    17. Suzuki, T. & Talman, A.J.J., 2011. "Solution Concepts for Cooperative Games with Circular Communication Structure," Discussion Paper 2011-100, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    18. Fabrice Barthelemy & Mathieu Martin & Bertrand Tchantcho, 2011. "Some conjectures on the two main power indices," THEMA Working Papers 2011-14, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    19. Richard Baron & Sylvain Béal & Eric Rémila & Philippe Solal, 2011. "Average tree solutions and the distribution of Harsanyi dividends," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 40(2), pages 331-349, May.
    20. Benati, Stefano & Rizzi, Romeo & Tovey, Craig, 2015. "The complexity of power indexes with graph restricted coalitions," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 53-63.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jgames:v:9:y:2018:i:2:p:29-:d:148247. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.