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Unanimity overruled: Majority voting and the burden of history

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  • Nehring, Klaus
  • Pivato, Marcus
  • Puppe, Clemens

Abstract

Sequential majority voting over interconnected binary propositions can lead to the overruling of unanimous consensus. We characterize, within the general framework of judgement aggregation, under what circumstances this happens for some sequence of the voting process. It turns out that the class of aggregation spaces for which this difficulty arises is very large, including the aggregation of preference orderings over at least four alternatives, the aggregation of equivalence relations over at least four objects, resource allocation problems, and most committee selection problems. We also ask whether it is possible to design respect for unanimity by choosing appropriate decision sequences. Remarkably, while this is not possible in general, it can be accomplished in interesting special cases. Adapting and generalizing a classic result by Shepsle and Weingast, we show that respect for unanimity can indeed be thus guaranteed in case of the aggregation of weak orderings, strict orderings and equivalence relations.

Suggested Citation

  • Nehring, Klaus & Pivato, Marcus & Puppe, Clemens, 2013. "Unanimity overruled: Majority voting and the burden of history," Working Paper Series in Economics 50, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Department of Economics and Management.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:kitwps:50
    DOI: 10.5445/IR/1000037496
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Darmann, Andreas & Grundner, Julia & Klamler, Christian, 2019. "Evaluative voting or classical voting rules: Does it make a difference? Empirical evidence for consensus among voting rules," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 345-353.
    2. Puppe, Clemens, 2018. "The single-peaked domain revisited: A simple global characterization," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 55-80.
    3. Andreas Darmann & Julia Grundner & Christian Klamler, 2017. "Consensus in the 2015 Provincial Parliament Election in Styria, Austria: Voting Rules,Outcomes, and the Condorcet Paradox," Graz Economics Papers 2017-13, University of Graz, Department of Economics.
    4. Klaus Nehring & Marcus Pivato, 2022. "The median rule in judgement aggregation," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 73(4), pages 1051-1100, June.
    5. Nehring, Klaus & Pivato, Marcus & Puppe, Clemens, 2014. "The Condorcet set: Majority voting over interconnected propositions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 268-303.
    6. Nehring, Klaus & Pivato, Marcus, 2019. "Majority rule in the absence of a majority," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 213-257.
    7. Jérôme Lang & Gabriella Pigozzi & Marija Slavkovik & Leendert Torre & Srdjan Vesic, 2017. "A partial taxonomy of judgment aggregation rules and their properties," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 48(2), pages 327-356, February.

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