Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A social choice theory of legitimacy

  • Published:
Social Choice and Welfare Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

We develop a formal theory of legitimate collective choice. In our theory a policy choice is legitimate if the process through which the final choice was determined is consistent with some principle that can be used to (perhaps partially) rank the potential policy choices. The set of principles in any choice situation is taken to be exogenous, but a decision-making process is defined so as to deal with any nontrivial set of principles. Such a process is itself referred to as legitimate if it is guaranteed to select a legitimate outcome for each possible exogenous set of principles. We characterize the class of procedures that are legitimate, prove that legitimate policy decisions consistent with principles always exist and characterize the set of policy decisions that are legitimate for a any given set of principles. As we do not require the principles to be weak orders of the alternatives, our theory provides a notion of legitimacy that can be satisfied even when the guiding principles are potentially cyclic or incomplete. Accordingly, our theory illustrates one nontautological means by which majoritarian principles can be reconciled with legitimacy.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Arrow KJ (1951) Social choice and individual values. Wiley, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Austen-Smith D, Banks JS (1996) Information aggregation, rationality and the Condorcet Jury theorem. Am Polit Sci Rev 90: 3445

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Banks JS (1985) Sophisticated voting outcomes and agenda control. Soc Choice Welf 1: 295–306

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Banks JS, Bordes GA (1988) Voting games, indifference, and consistent sequential choice rules. Soc Choice Welf 5(1): 31–44

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bohman J, Rehg W (1997) Deliberative democracy: essays on reason and politics. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Bordes G (1983) On the possibility of reasonable consistent majoritarian choice: some positive results. J Econ Theory 31: 122–132

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buchanan JM, Tullock G (1962) The calculus of consent: logical foundations of constitutional democracy. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen J (1986) An epistemic conception of democracy. Ethics 97(1): 6–25

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crombez C, Groseclose T, Krehbiel K (2006) Gatekeeping. J Polit 68: 322–334

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dickson E, Hafer C, Landa D (2008) Cognition and strategy: a deliberation experiment. J Polit 70: 974–989

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Downs A (1957) An economic theory of democracy. Harper and Row, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Dryzek JS, List C (2003) Social choice theory and deliberative democracy: a reconciliation. Br J Polit Sci 33: 1–28

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dutta B (1988) Covering sets and a new Condorcet choice correspondence. J Econ Theory 44: 63–80

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dutta B, Laslier JF (1999) Comparison functions and choice correspondences. Soc Choice Welf 16: 513–532

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Elster J (1998) Deliberative democracy. Cambridge University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Farquharson R (1969) The theory of voting. Yale University Press, New Haven

    Google Scholar 

  • Farrar C, Fishkin J, Green D, List C, Luskin R, Paluck E (2010) Disaggregating deliberations effects: an experiment within a deliberative poll. Br J Polit Sci 40: 333–347

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Feddersen TJ, Pesendorfer W (1998) Convicting the innocent: the inferiority of unanimous jury verdicts. Am Polit Sci Rev 92: 23–36

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gibbard A (1973) Manipulation of voting schemes: a general result. Econometrica 41(4): 587–601

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grofman B, Feld SL (1988) Rousseau’s general will: a Condorcetian perspective. Am Polit Sci Rev 82(2): 567–576

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grofman, BN, Owen, G (eds) (1986) Information pooling and group decision making. JAI Press, Greenwich

    Google Scholar 

  • Gutmann A, Thompson DF (1996) Democracy and disagreement. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Habermas J (1987) The theory of communicative action. Beacon, Boston

    Google Scholar 

  • Habermas J (1998) Between facts and norms: contributions to a discourse theory of law and democracy. MIT, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Hafer C, Landa D (2007) Deliberation as self-discovery and the institutions for political speech. J Theor Polit 19: 329–360

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson J (1998) Arguing for deliberation. In: Elster J (ed) Deliberative democracy. Cambridge University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Knight J, Johnson J (1994) Aggregation and deliberation: on the possibility of democratic legitimacy. Polit Theory 22: 277–296

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Knight J, Johnson J (1997) What sort of equality does democratic deliberation require?. In: Bohman J, Rehg W (eds) Deliberative democracy. MIT, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Ladha K (1992) The Condorcet Jury theorem, free speech and correlated votes. Am J Polit Sci 36: 617–634

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ladha K, Miller G, Oppenheimer J (1996) Information aggregation by majority rule: theory and experiments. Typescript, University of Maryland

  • Landa D, Meirowitz A (2008) Game theory, information, and deliberative democracy. Am J Polit Sci 53: 427–444

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Laslier JF (1997) Tournament solutions and majority voting. Springer-Verlag, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • List C, Goodin RE (2001) Epistemic democracy: generalizing the Condorcet Jury theorem. J Polit Philos 9: 277–306

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mackie G (2003) Democracy defended. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • May K (1952) A set of independent necessary and sufficient conditions for simple majority decision. Econometrica 20: 680–684

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McGann AJ (2006) The logic of democracy: reconciling equality, deliberation, and minority protection. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor

    Google Scholar 

  • McKelvey RD (1986) Covering, dominance, and institution-free properties of social choice. Am J Polit Sci 30: 283–314

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meirowitz A (2006) Designing institutions to aggregate preferences and information. Quart J Polit Sci 1: 373–392

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meirowitz A (2007) In defense of exclusionary deliberation: communication and voting with private beliefs and values. J Theor Polit 19: 301

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miller NR (1980) A new solution set for tournaments and majority voting: further graph-theoretical approaches to the theory of voting. Am J Polit Sci 24: 68–96

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miller D (1992) Deliberative democracy and social choice. Polit Stud 40: 54–67

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miller NR (1995) Committees, agendas, and voting. Harwood Academic, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Niou EM, Ordeshook PC (1985) Universalism in congress. Am J Polit Sci 29: 246–258

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ordeshook P, Schwartz T (1987) Agendas and the control of political outcomes. Am Polit Sci Rev 81(1): 179–199

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Patty JW (2007) Incommensurability and issue voting. J Theor Polit 19: 115–131

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Penn EM (2006) Alternate definitions of the uncovered set, and their implications. Soc Choice Welf 27: 83–87

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Penn EM, Patty JW, Gailmard S (n.d.) Manipulation and Single-peakedness: a general result. Am J Polit Sci, Forthcoming

  • Peris JE, Subiza Bn (1999) Condorcet choice correspondences for weak tournaments. Soc Choice Welf 16: 217–231

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richardson HS (2003) Democratic autonomy: public reasoning about the ends of policy. Oxford University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Riker W (1980) Implications from the disequilibrium of majority rule for the study of institutions. Am Polit Sci Rev 74: 432–446

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Riker WH (1986) The art of political manipulation. Yale University Press, New Haven

    Google Scholar 

  • Riker WH (1988) Liberalism against populism. Waveland Press, Prospect Heights

    Google Scholar 

  • Riker WH (1996) The strategy of rhetoric. Yale University Press, New Haven

    Google Scholar 

  • Rubinstein A (1980) Stability of decision systems under majority rule. J Econ Theory 23: 150–159

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Satterthwaite MA (1975) Strategy-proofness and Arrow’s conditions: existence and correspondence theorems for voting procedures and social welfare functions. J Econ Theory 10: 187–217

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwartz T (1990) Cyclic tournaments and cooperative majority voting: a solution. Soc Choice Welf 7(1): 19–29

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shepsle KA (1979) Institutional arrangements and equilibrium in multidimensional voting models. Am J Polit Sci 23(1): 27–59

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shepsle KA, Weingast BR (1981) Political preferences for the pork barrel: a generalization. Am J Polit Sci 25(1): 96–111

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shepsle KA, Weingast BR (1984) Uncovered sets and sophisticated voting outcomes with implications for agenda institutions. Am J Polit Sci 28(1): 49–74

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sunstein CR (2001) Designing democracy: what constitutions do. Oxford University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Tullock G (1981) Why so much stability?. Public Choice 37(2): 189–202

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tversky A (1972) Elimination by aspects: a theory of choice. Psychol Rev 79: 281–299

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tyler TR (2006) Psychological perspectives on legitimacy and legitimation. Annu Rev Psychol 57: 375–400

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • von Neumann J, Morgenstern O (1947) Theory of games and economic behavior, 2nd edn. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA

    John W. Patty & Elizabeth Maggie Penn

Authors
  1. John W. Patty
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Elizabeth Maggie Penn
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to John W. Patty.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Patty, J.W., Penn, E.M. A social choice theory of legitimacy. Soc Choice Welf 36, 365–382 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-010-0509-y

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-010-0509-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation