Cookies?
Library Header Image
LSE Research Online LSE Library Services

Measuring voting power for dependent voters through causal models

Bovens, Luc and Beisbart, Claus (2011) Measuring voting power for dependent voters through causal models. Synthese, 179 (1). pp. 35-56. ISSN 0039-7857

Full text not available from this repository.
Identification Number: 10.1007/s11229-010-9854-8

Abstract

We construct a new measure of voting power that yields reasonable measurements even if the individual votes are not cast independently. Our measure hinges on probabilities of counterfactuals, such as the probability that the outcome of a collective decision would have been yes, had a voter voted yes rather than no as she did in the real world. The probabilities of such counterfactuals are calculated on the basis of causal information, following the approach by Balke and Pearl. Opinion leaders whose votes have causal influence on other voters' votes can have significantly more voting power under our measure. But the new measure of voting power is also sensitive to the voting rule. We show that our measure can be regarded as an average treatment effect, we provide examples in which it yields intuitively plausible results and we prove that it reduces to Banzhaf voting power in the limiting case of independent and equiprobable votes. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

Item Type: Article
Official URL: http://www.springer.com/philosophy/epistemology+an...
Additional Information: © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
Divisions: Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method
Subjects: J Political Science > JA Political science (General)
Date Deposited: 24 Jan 2011 14:17
Last Modified: 05 Jan 2024 20:03
URI: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/31621

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item