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

Thomas Colignatus ()

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

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.

Keywords: voting theory; voting systems; elections; public choice; political economy; Borda Fixed Point; democracy; European Union; Penrose square root weights (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A2 D71 H0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-07-06, Revised 2007-07-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-dcm, nep-pbe and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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