Mathematics and democracy : designing better voting and fair-division procedures / Steven J. Brams.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brams, Steven J.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Voting--Mathematical models.

Voting.

Elections--Mathematical models.

Elections.

Finance, Public--Mathematical models.

Finance, Public.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (390 p.)

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, c2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Voters today often desert a preferred candidate for a more viable second choice to avoid wasting their vote. Likewise, parties to a dispute often find themselves unable to agree on a fair division of contested goods. In Mathematics and Democracy, Steven Brams, a leading authority in the use of mathematics to design decision-making processes, shows how social-choice and game theory could make political and social institutions more democratic. Using mathematical analysis, he develops rigorous new procedures that enable voters to better express themselves and that allow disputants to divide goods more fairly. One of the procedures that Brams proposes is "approval voting," which allows voters to vote for as many candidates as they like or consider acceptable. There is no ranking, and the candidate with the most votes wins. The voter no longer has to consider whether a vote for a preferred but less popular candidate might be wasted. In the same vein, Brams puts forward new, more equitable procedures for resolving disputes over divisible and indivisible goods.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Part 1. Voting Procedures

1 Electing a Single Winner: Approval Voting in Practice

2 Electing a Single Winner: Approval Voting in Theory

3 Electing a Single Winner: Combining Approval and Preference

4 Electing Multiple Winners: Constrained Approval Voting

5 Electing Multiple Winners: The Minimax Procedure

6 Electing Multiple Winners: Minimizing Misrepresentation

7 Selecting Winners in Multiple Elections

Part 2. Fair- Division Procedures

8 Selecting a Governing Coalition in a Parliament

9 Allocating Cabinet Ministries in a Parliament

10 Allocating Indivisible Goods: Help the Worst- Off or Avoid Envy?

11 Allocating a Single Homogeneous Divisible Good: Divide- the- Dollar

12 Allocating Multiple Homogeneous Divisible Goods: Adjusted Winner

13 Allocating a Single Heterogeneous Good: Cutting a Cake

14 Allocating Divisible and Indivisible Goods

15 Summary and Conclusions

Glossary

References

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786612531606

9781282531604

1282531603

9781400835591

1400835593

OCLC:

593342182