Cycles and Social Choice: The True and Unabridged Story of a Most Protean Paradox

by Thomas Schwartz

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The centuries-old paradox of voting is that majorities sometimes prefer x to y, y to z, and z to x - a cycle. The discovery of the sources and consequences of such cycles, under majority rule and countless other regimes, constitutes much of the mathematical theory of voting and social choice. This book explores the big questions posed by the paradox of voting: positive questions about how to predict outcomes and explain observed stability, and normative questions about how to hold elections, how to take account of preference intensities, the relevance of social welfare to social choice, and challenges to formal 'rationality', individual and social. The overall lesson is that cycles are facts, ubiquitous, and consequential in non-obvious ways, not puzzles to be solved, much less maladies or misfortunes to be avoided or regretted.
  • ISBN13 9781107180918
  • Publish Date 22 March 2018 (first published 21 February 2018)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country GB
  • Imprint Cambridge University Press
  • Format Hardcover
  • Pages 170
  • Language English