Abstract
Two measures of circumstantial or local power are introduced here. In our approach we focus on the viewpoint of an external observer who tries to evaluate the probability of a proposal to be passed by a certain committee. According to this local point of view we analyze the changes in the probability to pass the issue at hand obtained by modifying a voters’ perception about the proposal. In particular, we are interested in finding optimal persuadable voters and optimal bribable voters. To this end three preorderings on the set of voters are considered which are proved to be useful to identify these optimal voters.
Research partially supported by Grants SGR 2009–1029 of “Generalitat de Catalunya”, MTM 2009–08037 from the Spanish Science and Innovation Ministry and MTM 2012–34426 from the Spanish Economy and Competitiveness Ministry.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Banzhaf, J. F. (1965). Weighted voting doesn’t work: A mathematical analysis. Rutgers Law Review, 19, 317–343.
Coleman, J. S. (1971). Control of collectivities and the power of a collectivity to act. In B. Lieberman (Ed.), Social choice (pp. 269–300). New York: Gordon and Breach.
Dubey, P. (1975). On the uniqueness of the Shapley value. American Political Science Review, 4, 131–139.
Felsenthal, D. S., & Machover, M. (1998). The measurement of voting power: Theory and practice, problems and paradoxes. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Freixas, J., & Pons, M. (2005). Two measures of circumstantial power: Influences and bribes. Homo Oeconomicus, 22, 569–588.
Freixas, J., & Pons, M. (2008). Circumstantial power: Optimal persuadable voters. European Journal of Operational Research, 186, 1114–1126.
Isbell, J. R. (1956). A class of majority games. Quarterly Journal of Mathematics Oxford Series, 7(2), 183–187.
Napel, S., & Widgrén, M. (2001). Inferior players in simple games. International Journal of Game Theory, 30, 209–220.
Napel, S., & Widgrén, M. (2004). Power measurement as sensitivity analysis: A unified approach. Journal of Theoretical Politics, 16, 517–538.
Owen, G. (1972). Multilinear extensions of games. Management Science, 18, 64–79.
Owen, G. (1975). Multilinear extensions and the Banzhaf value. Naval Research Logistics Quarterly, 22, 741–750.
Penrose, L. S. (1946). The elementary statistics of majority voting. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 109, 53–57.
Shapley, L. S. (1953). A value for n-person games. In A. W. Tucker & H. W. Kuhn (Eds.), Contributions to the theory of Games II (pp. 307–317). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Shapley, L. S. (1962). Simple games: An outline of the descriptive theory. Behavioral Science, 7, 59–66.
Shapley, L. S., & Shubik, M. (1954). A method for evaluating the distribution of power in a committee system. American Political Science Review, 48, 787–792.
Straffin, P. D. (1977). Homogeneity, independence and power indices. Public Choice, 30, 107–118.
Straffin, P. D. (1988). The Shapley-Shubik and Banzhaf power indices. In Roth, A. E. (Ed.), The Shapley value: Essays in honor of Lloyd S. Shapley (pp 71–81). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Weber, R. J. (1988). Probabilistic values for games. In A. W. Tucker & H. W. Kuhn (Eds.), Contributions to the theory of Games II (pp. 101–119). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Freixas, J., Pons, M. (2013). Circumstantial Power: Some Hints for Finding Optimal Persuadable or Bribable Voters. 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_17
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35929-3_17
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-35928-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-35929-3
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsEconomics and Finance (R0)