Majority rule

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Majority rule is a decision rule that makes one of two alternatives the "winner", based on which has more than half the votes. It is notable in that it is the binary decision rule used most often in influential decision-making bodies, including the legislatures of democratic nations. Some people have recommended against the use of majority rule, at least under certain circumstances, due to an alleged trade-off between the benefits of majority rule and other values important democracy. Most famously, it has been feared that majority rule leads to a "tyranny of the majority", and the use of supermajoritarian rules have been recommended in its place. However, some voting theorists have argued that these fears are unfounded and majority rule may actually be the best rule to protect minorities.

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[edit] Use of Majority Rule

As a binary decision rule, majority rule has little use in elections. However, it is frequently used in legislatures and other bodies in which alternatives can be considered and amended in a process of deliberation until the final version of a proposal is adopted or rejected by majority rule. It is the default rule prescribed in books like Robert's Rules of Order. However, the rules of order of most groups prescribe the use of a supermajoritarian rule under certain circumstances, a two-thirds rule, for example, to reopen debate on a measure that has already been decided. Rusty's Rules of Order, which serves as the standing orders of the Industrial Workers of the World, is a simplification of Robert's Rules that prescribes the use of majority rule only.[1]

[edit] Majorities and Cycling

In group decision-making it is possible for a Condorcet cycle to form. That is, it is possible that there are alternatives a, b, and c such that a majority prefers a to b, another majority prefers b to c, and yet another majority prefers c to a. Because majority rule requires an alternative to have only majority support to pass, a majority under majority rule is especially vulnerable to having its decision overturned.

[edit] Voting on single issues and suboptimality

Majority rule may lead to quite different results if one votes separately on several single issues or if one puts these issues together and votes once on the corresponding bundles of alternatives.

An example may demonstrate this.

Suppose there are 3 voters, A, B and C, who have to decide 3 issues each with 2 alternatives: s or t, v or w, and x or y.

When a certain alternative is collectively chosen, voters either get a certain additional quantity of hours of leisure or their hours of leisure are reduced by a certain quantity. It is further assumed that each voter prefers more hours of leisure to less.

The 6 alternatives and the corresponding outcomes for the voters are given in the tables below:


A B C
s: 0 0 0
t: 1 1 -3


A B C
v: 0 0 0
w: 1 -3 1


A B C
x: 0 0 0
y: -3 1 1


From the tables you can see that for A and B alternative t is better than s, that for A and C alternative w is better than v, and that for B and C alternative y is better than x. Therefore t, w and y are the majority alternatives and thus the collective choice.

Now we put the 3 issues together. We get bundles of 3 alternatives each, for instance t+w+y and s+v+x, on which to vote. The bundles correspond to the following outcomes for the voters, consisting in hours of leisure (or quantities of any other good):


A B C
s+v+x: 0 0 0
t+w+y: -1 -1 -1


The table shows that now a majority prefers s+v+x to t+w+y. This result is quite the opposite of the former results gained by voting separately on each issue.

The bundle s+v+x now is preferred not only by a majority of voters but is even unanimously preferred by all the voters.

This means that s+v+x is superior to t+w+y according to the Pareto criterion.

Voting on each issue separately may thus lead to suboptimal results.

This is a rather strong argument against “direct democracy” and the indiscriminate use of referenda on single issues.

[edit] Alleged Drawbacks and Benefits of Majority Rule

[edit] Minority Rights

Because a majority can win a vote under majority rule, it is has been commonly argued that majority rule can lead to a "tyranny of the majority". Supermajoritarian rules, such as the three-fifths supermajority rule required to end a filibuster in the United States Senate, have been proposed as preventative measures of this problem. Critics argue that this solution is of dubious value.[2] Supermajoritarian rules do not guarantee that it is a minority that will be protected by the supermajority rule; they only establish that one of two alternatives is the status quo, privileging it against being overturned by a mere majority. To use the example of the US Senate, if a majority votes against cloture, then the filibuster will continue, even though a minority supports it. When there are multiple minorities and one is protected (or privileged) by the supermajoritarian rule, there is no guarantee that the protected minority won't be one that is already privileged, and if nothing else it will be the one that has the privilege of being aligned with the status quo.

Another way to safeguard against tyranny of the majority, it is argued, is to guarantee certain rights. Who gets to vote and their equal rights can be decided beforehand as a separate act[3], by charter or constitution. Thereafter, any decision that unfairly targets a minority's right could be said to be majoritarian, but would not be a legitimate example of a majority decision because it would violate the requirement for equal rights. Advocates of unfettered majority rule would note that because the procedure that privileges constitutional rights is generally some sort of supermajoritarian rule, this solution inherits whatever problems this rule would have. They would also add that the following: First, constitutional rights, being words on paper, cannot by themselves offer protection. Second, the rights of one person cannot be guaranteed without making an imposition on someone else; as Anthony McGann wrote, "one man’s right to property in the antebellum South was another man's slavery." Finally, as Amartya Sen demonstrated in presenting the liberal paradox, a proliferation of rights may make everyone worse off.[4]

In stark contrast to fears of a "tyranny of the majority", voting theorists have recently begun to argue that majority rule protects minority rights, at least in settings in which deliberation occurs. This is due to the cycling that majority rule is especially prone to. Cycling insures that it's in the interest parties that lose to a majority to remain part of the group's process, because a winning vote can easily be overturned by another majority. Furthermore, if a minority wishes to overturn a decision, it need form a coalition with only enough of the group member's to insure that more than half approves of the new proposal. (Under supermajoritarian rules there can be occasions on which a minority needs to form a coalition consisting of something greater than a majority to overturn a decision.) In support of the view that majority rule protects minority rights better than supermajoritarian rules one might point out that cloture rules in the US Senate were used to prevent the extension of civil liberties to racial minorities.[5] Ben Saunders, while agreeing that majority rule may offer better protection than supermajority rules, argues that majority rule may nonetheless be of little help to the most despised minorities in a group.[6]

[edit] Intensity of Preferences

Some have asserted that majority rule fails to measure the intensity of preferences. For example, in An Anarchist Critique of Democracy it is argued that "two voters who are casually interested in doing something" can defeat one, even if the one has "dire opposition" to the proposal of the two.[7] However, there will be times when a faction might want to support the proposal of another faction in exchange for support of a proposal it believes to be vital; it is in the interest of such a faction to report its true preferences.[8]

[edit] Deliberation

Majority rule is sometimes dismissed, because it supposedly leads to poor deliberation practice or, worse, "an aggressive culture and conflict"[9]. However, some voting theorists have argued that deliberative democracy flourishes best under majority rule. Majority rule will, so the argument goes, fare better than supermajoritarian rules, because under majority rule a participant will always have to convince more than half the group at the very least, while under supermajoritarian rules a participant might only need to persuade a minority.[10] Furthermore, because of cycling it is in the interest of participants to compromise, rather than strive to pass resolutions that only have the bare minimum required to "win".[11]

[edit] Arbitrariness

A majority is more than half; some would say that there's no fundamental reason why this should be the deciding number. However, voting theorists have enumerated a number of reasons why majority rule is the most reasonable binary decision rule.

  • As Kenneth O. May proved in 1952, any departure from majority rule will lack at least one of the following properties: neutrality, anonymity, and monotonicity. Unanimity, the rule presupposed by consensus decision-making, and other supermajoritarian rules are fail to be neutral (in regards to alternatives) and are therefore unfair.
  • As Rae argued and Taylor proved in 1969, majority rule is the rule that maximizes the likelihood that the issues a voter votes for will pass and that the issues a voter votes against will fail.
  • Majority rule is the rule that maximizes a minority's ability to form a coalition that could overturn an undesirable position. A rationally self-interested being behind a Rawlsian veil of ignorance would choose majority rule.[12]

It is for reasons such as these that democracy is sometimes equated with majority rule. For example, Thomas Jefferson once wrote, "The fundamental principle of the government is that the will of the majority is to prevail."[13]

[edit] Instability

Some have argued that due to cycling majority rule leads to systemic instability. However, as was previously noted, cycling makes it easier for minorities to form coalitions to overturn undesired outcomes. So while cycling may lead to an instability of policy, it makes it more likely that it will be in the best interest of everyone to continue to participate, because there are fewer permanent losers. The fact that governments that use majority rule that largely goes unchecked -- the governments of the Netherlands, Austria, and Sweden, for example -- are stable provides empirical evidence of majority rule's stability.[14]

[edit] Further Reading

  • Black, D.: The Theory of Committees and Elections, Cambridge 1958
  • Farquharson, R.: Theory of Voting, Oxford 1961

[edit] References

  1. ^ How to Hold a Good Meeting and Rusty's Rules of Order (PDF). Retrieved on 2008-06-09.
  2. ^ Anthony J. McGann (2002). The Tyranny of the Supermajority: How Majority Rule Protects Majorities (PDF). Center for the Study of Democracy. Retrieved on 2008-06-09.
  3. ^ A Przeworski, JM Maravall, I NetLibrary Democracy and the Rule of Law (2003) p.223
  4. ^ McGann, Anthony J. The Logic of Democracy: Reconciling, Equality, Deliberation, and Minority Protection. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 2006. ISBN 0-472-06949-7.
  5. ^ Anthony J. McGann (2002). The Tyranny of the Supermajority: How Majority Rule Protects Majorities (PDF). Center for the Study of Democracy. Retrieved on 2008-06-09.
  6. ^ Ben Saunders (2008). Democracy-as-Fairness: Justice, Equal Chances, and Lotteries (PDF). Retrieved on 2008-06-09.
  7. ^ An Anarchist Critique of Democracy (HTML) (2005). Retrieved on 2008-06-09.
  8. ^ Anthony J. McGann (2002). The Tyranny of the Supermajority: How Majority Rule Protects Majorities (PDF). Center for the Study of Democracy. Retrieved on 2008-06-09.
  9. ^ What's wrong with majority voting? (HTML). Consensus Decision Making. Seeds for Change (2005). Retrieved on 2006-01-17.
  10. ^ Ben Saunders (2008). Democracy-as-Fairness: Justice, Equal Chances, and Lotteries (PDF). Retrieved on 2008-06-09.
  11. ^ McGann, Anthony J. The Logic of Democracy: Reconciling, Equality, Deliberation, and Minority Protection. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 2006. ISBN 0-472-06949-7.
  12. ^ Anthony J. McGann (2002). The Tyranny of the Supermajority: How Majority Rule Protects Majorities (PDF). Center for the Study of Democracy. Retrieved on 2008-06-09.
  13. ^ Favorite Jefferson Quotes (HTML). Retrieved on 2008-06-09.
  14. ^ Anthony J. McGann (2002). The Tyranny of the Supermajority: How Majority Rule Protects Majorities (PDF). Center for the Study of Democracy. Retrieved on 2008-06-09.

[edit] See also

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