Voting is often the most public and visible example of mass collective decision-making. But how do we define a collective decision? And how do we classify and evaluate the modes by which collective decisions are made? This book examines these crucial ques

Systems engineering offers a set of capabilities and competencies to design and manage complex systems as they evolve. Drawing from social choice research and systems engineering practice, Making Better Choices examines how we make decisions together and the tools we use to arrive at those decisions. It takes a critical look at the rules and methods we apply to important decisions--from how we run meetings to how we elect presidents--with an interest in how we can improve these mechanisms. By reviewing different voting systems, their original intents, and their deficits, the authors outline a systems engineering approach to making collective choices in society. Written by an economist and an engineer, this groundbreaking work draws from insights in sociology, linguistics, law, political science, philosophy, psychology, economics, and systems design. In an era of relentless rating, this book offers a fresh vision for engineering better democracies by enabling diverse and inclusive choices

Legislatures are the core representative institutions in modern democracies. Citizens want legislatures to be decisive, and they want accountability, but they are frequently disillusioned with the representation legislators deliver. Political parties can provide decisiveness in legislatures, and they may provide collective accountability, but citizens and political reformers frequently demand another type of accountability from legislators – at the individual level. Can legislatures provide both kinds of accountability? This book considers what collective and individual accountability require and provides the most extensive cross-national analysis of legislative voting undertaken to date. It illustrates the balance between individualistic and collective representation in democracies, and how party unity in legislative voting shapes that balance. In addition to quantitative analysis of voting patterns, the book draws on extensive field and archival research to provide an extensive assessment of legislative transparency throughout the Americas.

Why our belief in government by the people is unrealistic—and what we can do about it Democracy for Realists assails the romantic folk-theory at the heart of contemporary thinking about democratic politics and government, and offers a provocative alternative view grounded in the actual human nature of democratic citizens. Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels deploy a wealth of social-scientific evidence, including ingenious original analyses of topics ranging from abortion politics and budget deficits to the Great Depression and shark attacks, to show that the familiar ideal of thoughtful citizens steering the ship of state from the voting booth is fundamentally misguided. They demonstrate that voters—even those who are well informed and politically engaged—mostly choose parties and candidates on the basis of social identities and partisan loyalties, not political issues. They also show that voters adjust their policy views and even their perceptions of basic matters of fact to match those loyalties. When parties are roughly evenly matched, elections often turn on irrelevant or misleading considerations such as economic spurts or downturns beyond the incumbents' control; the outcomes are essentially random. Thus, voters do not control the course of public policy, even indirectly. Achen and Bartels argue that democratic theory needs to be founded on identity groups and political parties, not on the preferences of individual voters. Now with new analysis of the 2016 elections, Democracy for Realists provides a powerful challenge to conventional thinking, pointing the way toward a fundamentally different understanding of the realities and potential of democratic government.

At least five U.S. presidential elections have been won by the second most popular candidate, because of "spoilers"--Minor candidates who take enough votes away from the most popular candidate to tip the election. The spoiler effect is a consequence of the "impossibility theorem," discovered by Nobel laureate economist Kenneth Arrow, which asserts that voting is fundamentally unfair--and political strategists are exploiting the mathematical faults of the simple majority vote. This book presents a solution to the spoiler problem: a system called range voting, already widely used on the Internet, which is the fairest voting method of all, according to computer studies. Range voting remains controversial, however, and author Poundstone assesses the obstacles confronting any attempt to change the American electoral system.--From publisher description.