Why one would accept Voting Theory for Democracy and reject the Penrose Square Root Weights

Colignatus, Thomas (2007): Why one would accept Voting Theory for Democracy and reject the Penrose Square Root Weights.

Abstract

Various scientists under the label of “Scientists for a democratic Europe” (SDE) sent a joint “Letter to the governments of the EU member states” (2007) advising the use of the Penrose Square Root Weights (PSRW) for the EU Council of Ministers. When we compare the SDE letter with Colignatus (2001, 2007b) “Voting theory for democracy” (VTFD) then we find that SDE does not fit voting theory for democracy. Inspection of the material upon which the SDE letter is based also shows a moral choice while the rigorous empirical analysis by Gelman, Katz and Bafumi (2007) is actually misrepresented. So the SDE letter can also be rejected on its own grounds. The PSRW approach seems not valid for (indivisible) individuals but may be applicable for divisible shares in shareholder meetings.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Institution: Thomas Cool Consultancy & Econometrics
• Language: English
• Keywords: voting theory; voting systems; elections; public choice; political economy; Borda Fixed Point; democracy; European Union; Penrose square root weights
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making > D71 - Social Choice ; Clubs ; Committees ; Associations; A - General Economics and Teaching > A2 - Economic Education and Teaching of Economics; H - Public Economics > H0 - General

References

Thomas Colignatus is the preferred name of Thomas Cool in science.

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