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Stearns, Maxwell L. --- "An Introduction to Social Choice" [2010] ELECD 310; in Farber, A. Daniel; O’Connell, Joseph Anne (eds), "Research Handbook on Public Choice and Public Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Research Handbook on Public Choice and Public Law

Editor(s): Farber, A. Daniel; O’Connell, Joseph Anne

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847206749

Section: Chapter 3

Section Title: An Introduction to Social Choice

Author(s): Stearns, Maxwell L.

Number of pages: 47

Extract:

3 An introduction to social choice1
Maxwell L. Stearns2


I. Introduction
The study of social choice grows out of a deceptively simple insight. While economic
theory assumes as a condition of rationality that individuals hold transitive preference
orderings (A preferred to B preferred to C implies A preferred to C), social choice reveals
that the transitivity assumption cannot be extended to groups of three or more individu-
als selecting among three or more options through a method of unlimited majority rule
(Riker 1982, 100; Stearns 1994, 1221­2). This stunningly simple insight ­ that the pref-
erences of group members sometimes cycle over options such that ApBpCpA, where p
means preferred to by simple majority rule ­ enjoys an impressive pedigree, dating to two
French philosophers writing contemporaneously with the founding and constitutional
framing periods in the United States (Stearns 1994, 1221­4; McLean and Urken 1992,
445, 453­5). Since the 1950s, social choice has generated a rich literature that boasts
a prominent Nobel Prize in Economics for Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, or simply
Arrow's Theorem. Perhaps more importantly for present purposes, social choice now
forms the basis of a growing legal literature that studies the nature and competence of
institutions, including elections, legislatures, courts, and agencies or bureaus.
The legal literature relying upon social choice is rich and varied. Some scholars have
relied upon social choice to advance normative proposals to change electoral voting pro-
cedures and decision-making processes in legislatures and courts. Other scholars have
taken a ...