[EM] Why proportional elections - Power arguments needed (Czech green party)
Bob Richard
lists001 at robertjrichard.com
Wed May 19 11:01:42 PDT 2010
Peter and all,
It is not clear to me how -- or even whether -- the concept of social
welfare functions applies to the composition of a legislative body. I
don't see how electing a legislature is a "decision" in the sense in
which that term is used in welfare economics. Electing an executive
officer can be viewed as a decision in a welfare economics framework.
Electing single legislators to "represent" geographically defined
districts can be viewed as a set of decisions, one decision per
district. But that requires you to put quotation marks around the word
"represent" since such bodies are not really representative of people
except by accident.
--Bob Richard
Peter Zbornik wrote:
> Dear Jameson,
>
> yes your argument is similar to the one of Terry Bouricius ("the
> wisdom of crowds", and yes it is a good one.
> Diversity also has an appeal to a diverse set of voters, allowing for
> improvements in voter preferences.
> That is a good line of argument, thanks.
>
>
> A very nice argument for proportional elections would be one founded
> in welfare economic theory.
> That would be very interesting at least for me, and I quess this
> argument should not be too difficult to formulate for elections (but I
> have no clue how)
>
> I am not sure if the resulting argument would be interesting for
> normal party members, but I think it is an important and very
> fundamental question to answer.
> I have seen technical arguments flying around in this forum (Bayesian
> regret, socially optimal pareto fronts, and Kristian's intruigung
> graph at: http://munsterhjelm.no/km/elections/multiwinner_tradeoffs/),
> which I haven't been able to understand.
>
> What I do understand is that we have a preference ordering when
> voting, which can be used in social welfare functions (see
> http://aede.osu.edu/programs/Anderson/trade/Welfare5rev.pdf, page 8
> and on).
> Maybe it can be shown that proportional elections are better than
> winner-takes-it-all elections for a wide range of social welfare
> functions.
>
> _Some wild speculation about things I don't understand very well:_
> Selecting a social welfare function (i.e. selecting between a
> utiltarian, bernoulli-nash or rawlsian social welfare function) can
> indeed be a voting task itself. I just don't have the proper training
> in economy to understand the details, like the publication below:
>
> I quote a publication I found:
> "The isoelastic SWF [see the publication /PZ comment/] takes on a
> number of familiar foms depending on the value of */p. /*When */p
> /*=O, it is the classical utilitarian. The limit as p-1 is the
> Bernoulli-Nash *(linear *in the logarithms). *And *as */p-m, /*it is
> the Rawlsian maximin fom. These cases are characterized by the shape
> of the social indifference curves shown in Figure 2.1. Because it is a
> function (i.e. the inverse) of the elasticity of substitution along
> *these *indifference curves. p reflects society's willingness to
> made-off utility berween individuals. *A *greater value of */p
> /*reflects greater social aversion to inequality . Therefore, */p
> /*may be considered an equity parameter, chosen by consensus or some
> other political means."(see page 24-25
> in _https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/10891/1/NQ27722.pdf_)
>
> Threse publications seems to be on a path which could have something
> to do with voting (selects the bernoulli-nash social welfare function):
> Economic analysis and distributive justice, page 49:
> http://people.ku.edu/~dburress/econ-ana.pdf
> <http://people.ku.edu/%7Edburress/econ-ana.pdf>
> Page 9: http://www.cherry.gatech.edu/mod/pubs/proceed3/c14_burr.pdf
> Isoelastic function again: Page 9, equation 10:
> http://www.mi.uni-hamburg.de/fileadmin/fnu-files/publication/tol/ereaggregation.pdf (there
> is even a maximin function)
>
> I personally like the Bernoulli-Nash welfare function on page 13, as
> it has good properties, where the utilities are multiplied instead of
> added (i. the form is the same as the other functions in the Pareto
> framework ii. it gives logaritmic weighs to utility by multiplying
> them efficiently preferring more "equal" utility distributions without
> demanding that utility should be distributed equally). Samuelson and
> Bergson proposed the Bernoulli-Nash social welfare function themselves.
>
> Ok, I am not sure if I made things clear or not, i touched (very
> lightly) upon this stuff in my studies. Seems to be an area which is
> not well understood.
>
> Best regards
> Peter Zborník
>
> On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 5:55 PM, Jameson Quinn
> <jameson.quinn at gmail.com <mailto:jameson.quinn at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> The whole point of having a representative body is that it
> represents the diversity of an organization. It's not just a
> matter of diversity of opinion; it's a diversity of strengths, of
> outlooks, of focus, which makes the organization stronger than any
> one person. A non-proportional system tends in the other
> direction, of electing N clones of the same bland majority
> candidate. Selecting only for broad appeal means selecting only
> for bland schmoozing; certainly a valuable skill in politics, but
> not the only skill you want your party to cultivate.
>
> Is that a good start?
>
> Jameson Quinn
>
> 2010/5/19 Peter Zbornik <pzbornik at gmail.com
> <mailto:pzbornik at gmail.com>>
>
> Dear all,
>
> just a post scriptum to the email below to make things clear:
> I wonder if there is a short and to the point argument for
> dummies, why proportional elections (say elections meeting the
> droop quota) leave the voters happier than winner-takes it all
> elections.
> This "for dummies" explanation of the advantages of
> proportional voting could be combined with a longer technical
> explanation, perhaps using social welfare functions. for
> people with time and interest to understand the argument in full.
>
> I don't mean that the argument above would be the best
> argument, but it could be a really interesting one.
>
> Best regards
> Peter Zborník
>
> On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 4:58 PM, Peter Zbornik
> <pzbornik at gmail.com <mailto:pzbornik at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Dear Kristoffer, dear readers,
>
> Kristofer, you wrote below: "A minor opinion within the
> party might need time to grow, and might in the end turn
> out to be significant, but using a winner-takes-it-all
> method quashes such minority opinions before they get the
> chance."
>
> Thanks, yes I have used this line of argument a lot (we
> actually have a global charter of the greens, according to
> which the greens are obliged to put the same principles
> into practice in thei organizations as they work for in
> society).
> The problem is, that this argument does not "stick", it is
> simply not sexy.
>
> Would it be possible to measure the "utility"
> or "happiness" among the voters in the party compared to
> different election methods. I saw you Kristofer did some
> work on this but I didn't understand it, I guess I lack
> the preliminaries.
>
> I guess the notion of "Bayesian regret" or something
> similar could be used to argue that proportional elections
> are better than block-voting, but I have no idea of how to
> explain this, as I don't know the subject at all (pareto
> optimal social allocations, or whatever).
>
> It seems intuitive that economic tools could be used (I
> know almost no economics), since ranked ballot elections
> simply are explicitly stated preference orderings.
>
> I guess that voting and elections, could be indeed one of
> the best imaginable real-world examples, where preference
> orderings of the actors actually are known, and thus all
> of the machinery of economic equilibria and social welfare
> functions could be applied (like the Bernoulli-Nash social
> welfare function).
>
> I am personally interested in the possiblity of measuring
> utility, is there some (preferably short) literature
> on social welfare, utility and voting theory for
> proportional elections (I know some undergrad maths and
> statistics)?
>
> Best regards
> Peter
>
> On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 1:03 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm
> <km-elmet at broadpark.no <mailto:km-elmet at broadpark.no>> wrote:
>
> Peter Zbornik wrote:
>
> Dear all,
> thank you for your help with the election system
> for the council elections of the green party.
> I will try to move on with technical testing of
> Schulze's methods and the specification of the
> elections to the party lists as soon as time allows.
> Thanks all for the support and all methods supplied.
> I never could imagine that I would get such a
> response.
> When advocating proportional elections in the
> party, I have found it difficult to explain to
> other members of the green party why proportional
> elections to our party organs is a good thing.
>
>
> As far as I remember, your party, the Czech Green
> Party, is a minor party. Therefore, it might be
> possible to draw an analogy to the proportional
> methods used by the Czech Republic itself. Without
> proportional representation, the Green Party would
> have next to no chance of ever getting into
> parliament. However, since your nation does use
> proportional representation, there is some chance.
>
> The same argument could be used within the party.
> Since the Green Party is a minor party, I reason that
> the party membership honestly believes the presence of
> that party is a good thing. Thus, they would also know
> (to some extent, at least), that minor groups of
> opinion - like their own party in comparison to the
> major parties - can be good and can add valuable ideas
> to governance. Then could not the same argument be
> used for the party itself? A minor opinion within the
> party might need time to grow, and might in the end
> turn out to be significant, but using a
> winner-takes-it-all method quashes such minority
> opinions before they get the chance.
>
>
>
>
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>
>
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--
Bob Richard
Executive Vice President
Californians for Electoral Reform
PO Box 235
Kentfield, CA 94914-0235
415-256-9393
http://www.cfer.org
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