Abstract
The standard democratic methods are unable to take the intensities of preferences into account. This is seen as a problem both in the theory of social choice and in the philosophy of democracy. The Borda count is sometimes defended as a rule which is able to take intensity differences into account. Here, it is argued that some defences of the Borda rule are based on the view that the basic task of voting rules is to aggregate information. In voting, however, there are two aspects which are not equally relevant other contexts: the requirements of democracy, and the interaction between the aggregation method and the input of aggregation. Voting should be conceptualized as an exercise of power. Arguments for Borda may be convincing in some contexts, but not necessarily in voting contexts.
An earlier version of this chapter was published in Essays in Honor of Hannu Nurmi (Homo Oeconomicus 28:49–70), 2011.
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- 1.
This text is a slightly revised version of a chapter (with the same title) published in Homo Oeconomicus 28 (2011), pp. 49–70. I am grateful to the two anonymous referees of the journal for their valuable criticism, and to Hannu Nurmi and Manfred J. Holler for useful comments.
- 2.
The discussion on the fundamental values of democracy has to be saved to another occasion. There is a vast amount of literature on the subject; for an interested reader, I may recommend the books of Christiano (1996) and Saward (1998) as good starting points. (As the reader may guess, the position taken in those works is quite close to my own.)
- 3.
The Borda rule was already described by the great philosopher and theologician Nicolaus Cusanus in his Concordantia catholica (1433/1995) where it was recommended as the best method to choose the Emperor. According to Antony Black (1994, p. 39), the Council of Basle (1431–49), in which Cusanus was a member, actually used a Borda-like rule. In Belgium, a Borda-like preferential rule was used in clerical elections from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, although the weights were not same as in Borda: one first-preference vote was worth of two second-preference votes or three third-preference votes (Moulin 1958, p. 547). The interpretation of the electoral results caused some disagreements. Pope Gregory XV (pope 1621–1623) decided that when “the number of votes” and “the number of voters” pointed in different directions, the latter was decisive (ibid., p. 517). This is the first recorded conflict between these two criteria of preference-aggregation.
- 4.
In an early paper (Lagerspetz 1988) I argued that the main methodological difference between the natural and the social sciences is related to this possibility.
- 5.
Fishkin’s “deliberative poll” (Fiskin 1991) operates with a randomly selected demos. However, although he recommends its use as an aid in democratic decision-making, he does not propose that it should replace general elections.
- 6.
Fishkin (1991, p. 83) quotes a study on opinion measurements: “Most respondents feel obliged to have an opinion, in effect, to help the interviewer out. (…) In effect, opinions are invented on the spot”.
- 7.
This counterargument was made by Manfred J. Holler.
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Lagerspetz, E. (2013). Intensity Comparisons, the Borda Rule and Democratic Theory. In: Holler, M., Nurmi, H. (eds) Power, Voting, and Voting Power: 30 Years After. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35929-3_6
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