Abstract.
In this paper we propose a simple model for measuring ‘success’ or ‘decisiveness’ in voting situations. For an assessment of these features two inputs are claimed to be necessary: the voting rule and the voters’ behavior. The voting rule specifies when a proposal is to be accepted or rejected depending on the resulting vote configuration. Voting behavior is summarized by a distribution of probability over the vote configurations. This basic model provides a clear common conceptual basis for reinterpreting different power indices and some related game theoretic notions coherently from a unified point of view.
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The authors would like to thank to M. Braham, M. Machover, N. Megiddo and F. Steffen, for their comments, and to J. F. Mertens for pointing out a misstatement, in all cases referring to previous versions of this paper. This research has been supported by the DGES of the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Cultura under project PB96-0247, by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología under project BEC2000-0875, and by the Universidad del País Vasco under project UPV/EHU00031.321-HA-7918/2000. The first author also acknowledges the financial support from a postdoctoral grant from the Basque Government (2000–2001) and the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología under the Ramón y Cajal Program.
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Laruelle, A., Valenciano, F. Assessing success and decisiveness in voting situations. Soc Choice Welfare 24, 171–197 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-003-0298-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-003-0298-7