Procedural Choice in Majoritarian Organizations

A puzzling feature of self‐governing organizations is persistent majority support for restrictive, seemingly nonmajoritarian, procedures (e.g., chairs and committees). This article provides a theory of self‐enforcing majoritarian commitment to restrictive procedures. We ask (1) why majorities consent to restrictive procedures in the first place, (2) why restrictive procedures survive challenges thereafter, and (3) with what policy consequences. In the model, a risk‐averse majority allocates procedural rights to increase procedural efficiency (i.e., reduce the procedural uncertainty of free‐for‐all bargaining). An equilibrium procedure is generally asymmetric and restrictive, generating nonmajoritarian policy bias. Still, a majority may persist in endorsing it so as to avoid amplifying procedural and policy uncertainty.     

Sophisticated Behavior under Majoritarian and Non-Majoritarian Voting Procedures

This study addresses the issue of sincere and sophisticated voting under majoritarian and non-majoritarian voting procedures. By conducting experimental voting games, we compared a common majoritarian procedure, Plurality Voting (PV) with a non-majoritarian procedure, Sequential Voting by Veto (SVV). We focused on two different aspects of the subject: the likelihood of sophisticated voting under each one of the voting procedures and the conditions that foster sincere and sophisticated voting under these procedures. The results highlighted the significant differences between majoritarian and non-majoritarian voting procedures as a key factor in determining the tendency of voters to use sincere or sophisticated voting. Clearly, the sincere model was dominant in SVV games while sophisticated voting dominated the PV games. The extent of sophisticated voting ran counter to the group size, a tendency that was stronger under SVV than under PV. By demonstrating the advantages of the minority principle, when voters are small in number, we hope to encourage the development of a solution that will enable the use of SVV in general elections.     

Majoritarian and Consensus Democracy: the Swedish Experience

According to the classical parliamentary doctrine of majoritarian rule, governments should be large, united and accountable to the voters. Since the introduction of proportional representation in the beginning of this century, these requirements have seldom been fulfilled in Continental politics. In this article the Swedish experience of minority parliamentarism is analyzed. The conclusion is drawn that the consensus model of democracy that has been practiced in this country comes closer to the ideal of the Conservatives who a hundred years ago opposed the parliamentary system.     

Proportional Representation,Majoritarian Legislatures,and Coalitional Voting

Voters in elections under plurality rule face relatively straightforward incentives. In proportional representation systems, voters face more complex incentives as electoral outcomes don’t translate as directly into policy outcomes as in plurality rule elections. A common approach is to assume electoral outcomes translate into policy as a vote‐weighted average of all party platforms. However, most of the world’s legislatures are majoritarian institutions, and elections in PR systems are generally followed by a process of coalition formation. Results obtained using this assumption are not robust to the introduction of even minimal forms of majoritarianism. Incentives to engage in strategic voting depend on considerations about the coalitions that may form after the election, and the voters’ equilibrium strategies are shaped by policy balancing and the postelectoral coalition bargaining situation, including considerations about who will be appointed the formateur.     

Majoritarian miracles and the question of party system change

European Journal of Political Research - The 1996 elections in Italy may be evaluated using a dual means of inquiry: which novelties (or the absence thereof) appear with respect to 1994? And, how...     

Majoritarian miracles and the question of party system change

The 1996 elections in Italy may be evaluated using a dual means of inquiry: which novelties (or the absence thereof) appear with respect to 1994? And, how many and in what way (if any) do they contribute to the definition of a new type of party system and a new logic of political competition? As regards the former perspective, we address three questions which represented fundamental issues at the time of the vote: (a) Would the new electoral system manage to provide a clear and stable governmental majority where it had failed to do so in 1994? (b) Would the political parties and alliances have changed their offers to the voters? (c) Would the voters have changed their behaviour, adapting it not just to any new offers, but especially to the logic of majoritarian competition? Regarding the latter perspective, these questions can be amalgamated into a single enquiry: Do the 1996 elections constitute a decisive step in the direction of a new party system, or are they a step backwards, or do they simply present a static picture?     

Majoritarian Democracy in Britain: New Labour and the Constitution

In May 1997 the British electorate voted a Labour government into office after 18 years of Conservative administration. This government has subsequently enacted a large number of constitutional reforms. However, a debate exists in relation to the degree to which, taken together, these reforms amount to a fundamental shift in the nature of British democracy. This article utilises Arend Lijphart's work on patterns of democracy in order to provide a conceptual lens through which New Labour's constitutional reforms can be analysed in terms of representing either a minor or major shift from a traditionally majoritarian to more consensus-orientated system. The article concludes that, although significant, the actual degree of reform in Britain is less radical than is commonly assumed: although New Labour is committed to far-reaching constitutional reform in principle it has been far less committed in practice.     

From Majoritarian Democracy to Vertical Separation of Powers: Sweden and the European Union

The key problem in constitutional politics in the established democracies may be said to pertain to finding the right balance between majoritarian democracy, constitutionalism and effective decision making. From that perspective this essay examines the Swedish polity before and after the accession to the European Union in 1995. From 1917 onwards majoritarian democracy and parliamentarism were the praxis of the Swedish polity. But this mode of goverment was not written into the 1809 Instrument of Government, which was characterised by the separation of powers between the king and the parliament. It was first in the new Instrument of Government, adopted in 1973–74, that the praxis of majoritarian democracy and parliamentarism was codified. But in the 1990s a new form of dualism was introduced into the Swedish polity as a result of the country's accession to the European Union. On the one hand, there is an Instrument of Government characterised by the principle of majoritarian democratic rule. On the other, accession to the EU involves a vertical separation of powers on a major scale. Two conflicting fundamental elements, majoritarian democracy and vertical separation of powers, are currently incorporated in the Swedish polity.     

地方主义的行动逻辑

由于地区经济、政治、文化等发不平衡 ,中国地方主义表现明显。也正是地方主义的存在 ,良好的经济社会环境就受到严重的阻碍。但地方主义为何会出现且表现得如此普遍呢 ?又该如何去克服呢 ?本文试图利用奥尔森的公共选择理论对中国地方主义的行动逻辑进行分析     

切莫忽视逻辑教学

作为研究人类思维形式及思维规律的逻辑学与语文学习的关系十分密切，语文学习就是运用逻辑的过程。现代语文及各科教学强调掌握学习方法及思维训练，加强逻辑知识学习则是实现语文教学目标的重要途径。     

浅谈命题逻辑

命题逻辑是形式逻辑的基本组成部分,它研究命题之间的关系和怎样由简单命题推导出复合命题的真值。描写命题逻辑的组成部分,即简单命题、逻辑小品词,真值和真值条件,并且阐述了命题逻辑基本的工作机制,以实际的例子展示由简单命题推导复合命题真值的方法。     

二元论的逻辑错误

从使用人工语言表示一个一元论或二元论观点入手,首先,在一阶逻辑上定义"归元谓词",并使用集合的观点改写其表达式;其次,运用"归元谓词"定义一元论和二元论,并指出二元论的逻辑错误;然后将以上观点运用于对一个实例的分析,即对试图使用哥德尔定理反驳强人工智能观点的工作加以反驳;最后得出结论:讨论"世界本原"问题是无意义的,一个一元论仅仅是在承认空集存在的意义上被我们接受。     

Economy,logic, and action

Interviewed by Richard Swedberg     

科学人才观逻辑演绎的客观分析

客观分析我国领导人有关人才思想的逻辑演绎过程,有助于我们更好地认识和把握"科学人才观"的要旨。这不仅有利于我国人才队伍的壮大和优化,还有益于我国在激烈的国际化竞争环境中保持长久不衰。     

The logic of multiculturalism and Korean democracy

In this article, I attempt to construct a normative framework of Korean multiculturalism in the Confucian public-societal context of Korean democracy by focusing on the political implications of the claim to cultural rights (so-called ‘logic’ of multiculturalism) and cultural pluralism that it is likely to entail for Korean democracy. After examining the logic of multiculturalism that often puts multiculturalism in tension with liberal democracy, I turn to Will Kymlicka's account of immigrant multiculturalism that resolves the potential tension between multiculturalism and liberal democracy in a liberal way. Then, I construct a normative framework of Korean multiculturalism in a way that a decent multicultural society can be established on the same public-cultural ground on which Korean democracy has matured in the past two decades.     

The conservative political logic: a discourse-theoretical perspective

In contrast to other core constituents of modern politics, conservatism has not been the object of much discursive-constructivist rethinking. Inspired by Laclau’s work and by Glynos and Howarth’s discourse-theoretical development of the notion of logics, this article sets out to identify the conservative political logic. Conservative politics, it argues, articulate demands as conservation, envisaged as a process of ensuring the desirable continuity of the social order between past, present and future, in opposition to a (demand for) change that is argued to constitute a dislocatory threat to the continuity of the social order. The conservative political logic interpellates citizens as members of that threatened social order, and presents conservative politics as the way to protect this threatened social order. Building on a critical discussion of dominant approaches to conservatism, the article proposes to identify the more formal logic that structures conservative rhetoric as an alternative for a substance-based ideological definition of conservatism. The distinctiveness of the discourse-theoretical perspective on conservative politics becomes more pronounced as the article moves on to argue that conservatism discursively constructs changes as threats to the social order, and, finally, shows how conservative politics discursively construct and reproduce the social order they (cl)aim to conserve.     

Intelligence reform: The logic of information sharing

A cornerstone of US intelligence reform is ‘information sharing’ as a means of adapting to contemporary security challenges. It was a central recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, reflected in the wide-ranging ‘Information Sharing Environment’ mandated by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. Yet the underlying logic of information sharing for intelligence reform has received little attention. Drawing on information and communications theory, this paper critiques the logic by highlighting problems of sense-making and interpretation overlooked amid the scholarly enthusiasm for an intelligence ‘culture of sharing’. With their impersonal, technical, and highly bureaucratic approach, today's reforms may favor the flow of information and its sheer volume at the expense of the context and analytic tradecraft that render it meaningful, actionable intelligence. For effective information sharing, the paper suggests reformers pay more attention to the socio-technical environment of analysis when interpreting ambiguous, uncertain information.