Voting and Collective Decision-Making: Bargaining and Power

Every day thousands of decisions are made by all kinds of committees, parliaments, councils and boards by a 'yes-no' voting process. Sometimes a committee can only accept or reject the proposals submitted to it for a decision. On other occasions, committee members have the possibility of modifying the proposal and bargaining an agreement prior to the vote. In either case, what rule should be used if each member acts on behalf of a different-sized group? It seems intuitively clear that if the groups are of different sizes then a symmetric rule (e.g. the simple majority or unanimity) is not suitable. The question then arises of what voting rule should be used. Voting and Collective Decision-Making addresses this and other issues through a study of the theory of bargaining and voting power, showing how it applies to real decision-making contexts.

Table of Contents:
List of figures; Preface; 1. Preliminaries; 2. Seminal papers, seminal ambiguities; 3. Take-it-or-leave-it committees; 4. Bargaining committees; 5. Application to the European Union; Index.

Review :
Review of the hardback: 'There are many books on voting rules and power indices, but Laruelle and Valenciano are unique in tracing the ideas back to fundamental notions in game theory. This book will be an indispensable aid to those who research in this area.' Ken Binmore, Emeritus Professor of Economics, University College London Review of the hardback: 'The authors do an excellent job of developing a framework, founded in utility theory and game theory, for analyzing the nature of yes/no collective decisions and offering prescriptions for improving them. They suggest how the power and satisfaction of voters may be measured and assess the impact of voting rules, showing how their theory helps one understand the consequences of real-world choices, particularly by the European Union.' Steven J. Brams, New York University and author of Mathematics and Democracy (2008) Review of the hardback: 'With this book, Laruelle and Valenciano give us an extremely useful synthesis that goes deep into the understanding of power measurement and collective decision-making and provides new insights into many issues. The various measures of power and the different approaches that one finds in the literature are elegantly put into perspective. This book will become a classic in the field.' Marc Fleurbaey, Research Director, CNRS and University of Paris Descartes Review of the hardback: 'Annick Laruelle and Federico Valenciano provide an illuminating and timely analysis of voting rules. By re-examining bargaining power and influence from a game theoretic perspective on the multilateral bargaining that goes on in committees, the authors provide new insights into the properties of voting systems and their optimal design. This is a monograph that should be of significant interest to both researchers on collective decision-making and designers of voting rules.' Matthew Jackson, William D. Eberle Professor of Economics, Stanford University Review of the hardback: 'Annick Laruelle and Federico Valenciano are prominent scholars in the applied game theory community. In their new book, they suggest a novel approach to collective choice in dichotomous (yes/no) settings, one based on distinguishing between voting and bargaining committees. The traditional voting power concepts are thereby seen in a new light. The book makes very enlightening and thought provoking reading.' Hannu Nurmi, Academy Professor, Academy of Finland Review of the hardback: '... should be of interest to students and researchers in political and social science, as well as in game theory and economics. The level of formalization is low enough not to discourage readers with less mathematical background but at the same time high enough to be precise.' Zentralblatt MATH