Persuading Caesar: A new interpretation of Farquharson's problem

Abstract

Merely because voting takes place in a real-life social decision system, we are not thereby confronted by a ‘voting game’. Often we are confronted by something that looks more like an advising game, in which voting is mainly important as a language by which policymakers render advice to other policymakers (possibly including their own future selves) who will act later. In this brief research note, the foregoing theme is illustrated by re-interpreting the same case from ancient Roman senatorial politics which inspired Robin Farquharson's seminal Theory of Voting. I stress that the contributions of this article lie entirely in the interpretation of allegedly gamelike situations, not in the formal analysis of games proper.