Journal Articles
Social choice and popular control
In democracies citizens are supposed to have some control over the general direction of policy.
According to a pretheoretical interpretation of this idea, the people have control if elections and
other democratic institutions compel officials to do what the people want, or what the majority
want. This interpretation of popular control fits uncomfortably with insights from social choice
theory; some commentators—Riker, most famously—have argued that these insights should
make us abandon the idea of popular rule as traditionally understood. This article presents a
formal theory of popular control that responds to the challenge from social choice theory. It
makes precise a sense in which majorities may be said to have control even if the majority
preference relation has an empty core. And it presents a simple game-theoretic model to illustrate
how majorities can exercise control in this specified sense, even when incumbents are engaged in purely re-distributive policymaking and the majority rule core is empty.
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Detail Information
- Series Title
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Journal of Theoretical Politics
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- Publisher
- Thousand Oaks, CA : Sage Publications., 2016
- Collation
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- Language
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English
- ISBN/ISSN
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0951-6298
- Classification
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NONE
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- Media Type
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- Edition
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Volume 28, Issue 2, April 2016; pp. 331–349
- Subject(s)
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- Statement of Responsibility
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