On the Weights of Nations: Assigning Voting Weights in a Heterogeneous Union Export

@article{citeulike:4747019, abstract = {doi: 10.1086/501172 We study indirect democracy in which countries, states, or districts each elect a representative who later votes at a union level on their behalf. We show that the voting rule that maximizes the total expected utility of all agents in the union involves assigning a weight to each district's vote and then sticking with the status quo unless at least a threshold of weighted votes is cast for change. We analyze how the weights relate to the population size of a country and the correlation structure of agents' preferences, and then we compare the voting weights in the Council of the European Union under the Nice Treaty and the recently proposed Constitution.}, author = {Barber\`{a}, Salvador and Jackson, Matthew o}, citeulike-article-id = {4747019}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/501172}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/501172}, day = {1}, doi = {10.1086/501172}, journal = {Journal of Political Economy}, keywords = {institution, political\_economy, power, voting}, month = {April}, number = {2}, pages = {317--339}, posted-at = {2009-06-05 06:27:12}, priority = {4}, title = {On the Weights of Nations: Assigning Voting Weights in a Heterogeneous Union}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/501172}, volume = {114}, year = {2006} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:4747019 L3 - citeulike-article-id:4747019 N2 - doi: 10.1086/501172 We study indirect democracy in which countries, states, or districts each elect a representative who later votes at a union level on their behalf. We show that the voting rule that maximizes the total expected utility of all agents in the union involves assigning a weight to each district’s vote and then sticking with the status quo unless at least a threshold of weighted votes is cast for change. We analyze how the weights relate to the population size of a country and the correlation structure of agents’ preferences, and then we compare the voting weights in the Council of the European Union under the Nice Treaty and the recently proposed Constitution. IS - 2 JF - Journal of Political Economy EP - 339 TI - On the Weights of Nations: Assigning Voting Weights in a Heterogeneous Union VL - 114 SP - 317 KW - institution KW - political_economy KW - power KW - voting AU - Barberà, Salvador AU - Jackson, Matthew o PY - 2006/04/01/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/501172 ER -