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In this thirty-second annual volume in the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy's NOMOS series, entitled Majorities and Minorities, thirteen distinguished contributors consider a diverse selection of topics. Included are essays on legitimacy of the majority, the utilitarian view of majoritarianism, majorities and elections, pluralism and equality, democratic theory, and American democracy and majority rules. Of Interest to political scientists, philosophers, and legal scholars, this collection brings together a variety of viewpoints. Each author is a leading voice within his or.

The tension between executive & legislative on the federal level of the Amer pol'al system has become a characteristic feature of Amer. politics. Certain areas of public policy are readily identifiable as associated with this tension. 'Internal security,' 'pork barrel' practices of Congress, 'protectionism,' immigration, integration, foreign aid, gov expenditure, & so on, are issues on which the Executive tends to reflect what is regarded as enlightened opinion among intellectuals, while Congress is considered as the stronghold of entrenched minorities. For pol'al sci'ts, like Robert A. Dahl in PREFACE TO DEMOCRATIC THEORY, it seems that the majority-rule problem in America concerns solely presidential elections. Implicitly, legitimacy is denied to the elections which produce Congress, though in fact it is the presidential majority which was suggested in the primitive Constitutional framework. Thus the executive-legislative tension is rooted in the existence of 2 majorities, the electorate being encouraged to overestimate its dedication to moral principle in one (the Presidential election) & obliged to take a more realistic view of themselves in another (the Congressional election). To face this tension, the deepest issues between US conservatism and US liberalism should be reopened to discussion. IPSA.

Complaints are common about the arbitrary and conservative bias of special-majority rules. Such complaints, however, apply to asymmetrical versions of those rules alone. Symmetrical special-majority rules remedy that defect, albeit at the cost of often rendering no determinate verdict. Here what is formally at stake, both procedurally and epistemically, is explored in the choice between those two forms of special-majority rule and simple-majority rule; and practical ways are suggested of resolving matters left open by symmetrical special-majority rules – such as 'judicial extrapolation' or 'subsidiarity' in a federal system.

Based on a general model of the 'quaternary' voting rule, sensitive to voters' choices between four different options (abstaining, voting 'yes', voting 'no' and staying at home), we systematically study different types of majority and quorum. The model allows for a precise formulation of majority rules and quorum constraints. For such rules four types of majority can be defined. We also consider four types of quorum. Then we study the possible combinations of a majority system with a type of quorum and provide examples from rules actually used in parliaments. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

When a political party wrests control of either house of Congress
from the other, expectations for change are usually high and that
was certainly the case in January 2007 when Democrats took
majorities in both chambers for the first time in 12 years. What did
the new majorities—and specifically their leaders—promise? To what
extent have they delivered? And how do the experiences of the new
majorities during their first nine months conform with or raise
questions about our theories of Congress? This is perforce an
interim report but, even so, it can perhaps shed some light on our
theories as well as provide a first assessment of the new majorities
and their leaders. In addition to the
references cited here, this paper is based on interviews,
observation and news accounts.

One way of making decisions is for political associates or their representatives to vote on each issue separately in accordance with the majority principle and then take the cumulative outcomes of such majority decision making to define the collective choice for public policy. We call such a system one of majorities rule. Thought of in spatial terms, majorities rule is equivalent to the principle of making decisions according to the issue-by-issue median of voter preferences. If popular control and political equality are core democratic values, they can be rendered as requirements on a collective choice rule, involving resoluteness, anonymity, strategy-proofness and responsiveness. These requirements entail that the collective decision rule be a percentile method. If we then add a requirement of impartiality, as exhibited in a collective choice rule which would be chosen behind a veil of ignorance, then the issue-by-issue median is uniquely identified as a fair rule. Hence, majorities rule is special. Some objections to this line of reasoning are considered.

Based on a general model of the 'quaternary' voting rule, sensitive to voters' choices between four different options (abstaining, voting 'yes', voting 'no' and staying at home), we systematically study different types of majority and quorum. The model allows for a precise formulation of majority rules and quorum constraints. For such rules four types of majority can be defined. We also consider four types of quorum. Then we study the possible combinations of a majority system with a type of quorum and provide examples from rules actually used in parliaments.

In this thirty-second annual volume in the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy's NOMOS series, entitled Majorities and Minorities , thirteen distinguished contributors consider a diverse selection of topics. Included are essays on legitimacy of the majority, the utilitarian view of majoritarianism, majorities and elections, pluralism and equality, democratic theory, and American democracy and majority rules. Of Interest to political scientists, philosophers, and legal scholars, this collection brings together a variety of viewpoints. Each author is a leading voice within his or

Under the assumptions of the standard Condorcet Jury Theorem, majority verdicts are virtually certain to be correct if the competence of voters is greater than one-half, and virtually certain to be incorrect if voter competence is less than one-half. But which is the case? Here we turn the Jury Theorem on its head, to provide one way of addressing that question. The same logic implies that, if the outcome saw 60 percent of voters supporting one proposition and 40 percent the other, then average voter competence must either be 0.60 or 0.40. We still have to decide which, but limiting the choice to those two values is a considerable aid in that.