Minority voting rights can maximize majority welfare
By: CHWE, Michael Suk-Young
.
Material type: 
ArticlePublisher: New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, March 1999American Political Science Review 93, 1, p. 85-98Abstract: The most immediate criterion of democratic decision making is fairness. But Condorcet (1785) in his "jury theorem" argued on welfarist grounds, showing that if each individual has an equal chance of having the correct opinion, then majority rule is most likely to select the better of two alternatives. Minority representation is almost always discussed in terms of fairness. I use Condorcet's information aggregation argument to show that sometimes the best possible decision procedure for the majority allows the minority to "enforce" its favored outcome even when overruled by a majority. This is simply because of the importance of participation: "Special" voting power gives the minority an incentive to participate meaningfully, and more participation means more information is aggregated, which makes the majority better off. That majority rule can discourage minority participation, and that voting procedures can be designed to encourage it, benefitting everyone, are points made by Lani Guinier (1994); this article might be considered a mathematical corroboration. Proponents of minority voting rights and procedures other than majority rule need not concede welfare, efficiency, or the vision, however appealing or unappealing, of a world in which we have different opinions but deep down all want the same thing.
The most immediate criterion of democratic decision making is fairness. But Condorcet (1785) in his "jury theorem" argued on welfarist grounds, showing that if each individual has an equal chance of having the correct opinion, then majority rule is most likely to select the better of two alternatives. Minority representation is almost always discussed in terms of fairness. I use Condorcet's information aggregation argument to show that sometimes the best possible decision procedure for the majority allows the minority to "enforce" its favored outcome even when overruled by a majority. This is simply because of the importance of participation: "Special" voting power gives the minority an incentive to participate meaningfully, and more participation means more information is aggregated, which makes the majority better off. That majority rule can discourage minority participation, and that voting procedures can be designed to encourage it, benefitting everyone, are points made by Lani Guinier (1994); this article might be considered a mathematical corroboration. Proponents of minority voting rights and procedures other than majority rule need not concede welfare, efficiency, or the vision, however appealing or unappealing, of a world in which we have different opinions but deep down all want the same thing.
Click on an image to view it in the image viewer
There are no comments for this item.