AN ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL CHOICE INSTITUTIONS

Abstract

An election for the Presidency, to Congress or to parliament involves the combination of individual views of who should be elected into the respective sort of collective. In an election, the individuals' views are expressed on the ballot paper or either as a vote given by each voter to a candidate, or as a listed order of preference. The electoral system then defines the rules for combining these stated preferences to determine the winning candidate(s). Currently, the trend in the electoral reform arena sees a professed movement towards proportional representation. Paradoxically, this did not show up as an increased number of countries adopting PR systems, rather, it is the mixed systems that have seen the rise in popularity. In the electoral application of social choice theory, we can think of features or properties of the system that people would want to see. For example, it should treat all candidates equally so that none has a built-in advantage from the system used. And in this exercise, we will explore the tendency for dictatorial outcomes under the various electoral systems used around the world and also the extent of power sharing by the minorities in the non-dictatorial cases. The findings show that if non-dictatorial outcome is an electoral property which one desires, then proportional representation systems would be the preferred choice. Particularly, a low 'effective threshold' is required if one wish to avoid a dictatorial outcome. The distribution of minority parties' power is only marginally different among the systems.