An axiomatic theory of political representation

Christopher Chambers

No 1218, Working Papers from California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences

Abstract: We discuss the theory of voting rules which are immune to gerrymandering. Our approach is axiomatic. We show that any rule that is unanimous, anonymous, and representative consistent must decide a social alternative as a function of the proportions of agents voting for each alternative, and must either be independent of this proportion, or be in one-to-one correspondence with the proportions. In an extended model in which voters can vote over elements of the unit interval, we introduce and characterize the quasi-proportional rules based on unanimity, anonymity, representative consistency, strict monotonicity, and continuity. We show that we can always (pointwise) approximate a single-member district quota rule with a quasi-proportional rule. We also establish that upon weakening strict monotonicity, the generalized target rules emerge.

Keywords: gerrymandering; representative systems; proportional representation; social choice; quasi-arithmetic means (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2005-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pol
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.hss.caltech.edu/SSPapers/wp1218.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.hss.caltech.edu/SSPapers/wp1218.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.hss.caltech.edu/SSPapers/wp1218.pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: An axiomatic theory of political representation (2009)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:clt:sswopa:1218

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
Working Paper Assistant, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 228-77, Caltech, Pasadena CA 91125

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences Working Paper Assistant, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 228-77, Caltech, Pasadena CA 91125.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Victoria Mason ().