A weak characterization of the simple majority rule May 3, 2008
Posted by adrianmiroiu in work in progress.trackback
May’s (1952) celebrated characterization of the simple majority rule appealed to four properties: decisiveness, neutrality, anonymity and positive responsiveness. The impression that they are too strong for this job was, however, quite appealing. The aim of this paper is to present characterizations of the majority rule that appeal to properties which substantially weaken some of May’s axioms. First, I prove that we can replace positive responsiveness with a weaker version of it, and still succeed in characterizing the majority rule. Secondly, I show that we can also dispense with anonymity and neutrality, and appeal to a weaker property called binary opposition.
