When one thinks about how collective decisions are made, voting is the method that comes naturally to mind. But other methods such as random process and consensus are also used. This book explores just what a collective decision is, classifies the methods of making collective decisions, and identifies the advantages and disadvantages of each method. Classification is the prelude to evaluation. What are the characteristics of a method of making collective decisions, the book asks, that permit us to describe a collective decision as good? The second part of the book is detailed exploration of voting: the dimensions in which voting situations differ, the origins and logic of majority rule, the frequency of cycles in voting, the Arrow and Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorems, criteria for ways of cutting through cycles and the application of these criteria to a variety of rules, voting over continuums, proportional representation, and voting rules that take account of intensities of preferences. Relatively unknown methods of voting give voting a much greater potential than is generally recognized. Collective Decisions and Voting is essential reading for everyone with an interest in voting theory and in how public choices might be made.

In this book, different quantitative approaches to the study of electoral systems have been developed: game-theoretic, decision-theoretic, statistical, probabilistic, combinatorial, geometric, and optimization ones. All the authors are prominent scholars from these disciplines. Quantitative approaches offer a powerful tool to detect inconsistencies or poor performance in actual systems. Applications to concrete settings such as EU, American Congress, regional, and committee voting are discussed.

'Dennis Mueller has played a significant part in the development of public choice, and this volume pays a fitting tribute to that contribution.' - Alan Hamlin, The Economic Journal The Public Choice Approach to Politics presents some of Dennis Mueller's most important contributions to public choice and public economics.

In his seminal Social Choice and Individual Values, Kenneth Arrow stated that his theory applies to voting. Many voting theorists have been convinced that, on account of Arrow's theorem, all voting methods must be seriously flawed. Arrow's theory is strictly ordinal, the cardinal aggregation of preferences being explicitly rejected. In this paper, I point out that all voting methods are cardinal and, therefore, outside the reach of Arrow's result. Parallel to Arrow's ordinal approach, there evolved a consistent cardinal theory of collective choice. This theory, most prominently associated with the work of Harsanyi, continued the older utilitarian tradition in a more formal style. The purpose of this paper is to show that various derivations of utilitarian SWFs can also be used to derive utilitarian voting (UV). By this, I mean a voting rule that allows the voter to score each alternative in accordance with a given scale. UV-k indicates a scale with k distinct values. The general theory leaves k to be determined on pragmatic grounds. A (1,0) scale gives approval voting. I prefer the scale (1,0,-1) and refer to the resulting voting rule as evaluative voting. A conclusion of the paper is that the defects of conventional voting methods result not from Arrow's theorem, but rather from restrictions imposed on voters' expression of their preferences. The analysis is extended to strategic voting, utilizing a novel set of assumptions regarding voter behavior.