Chapter 1 of the thesis examines a question of how a voting process can be designed to induce rational individuals to display reciprocal and pro-social behaviors. A political procedure, namely, the reciprocity mechanism, is proposed to address this issue. The analysis displays that this new mechanism is a modification of the legislative process encountered in democratic countries. The results indicate that, under natural assumptions on voters' preferences, a stable policy always exists, and it may be unique if preferences are single-peaked. Moreover, any stable policy is Pareto-efficient. It has been argued that the size of the supermajority needed to enact a policy in a decision-making body should depend on the importance of this policy. However, a formal analysis of the relationship between policy importance and the voting rule is still lacking in the literature. Chapter 2 addresses this gap from the perspective of a preference-blind political designer. Given the level of importance of a policy, the goal is to choose the supermajority rule that guarantees the existence of a stable policy regardless of the extent to which individual political opinions are antagonistic, ensures that all stable policies are efficient, and minimizes status quo bias. Chapter 2 solves this problem. A closed-form relationship between supermajority rule and policy importance is derived. The analysis has practical implications for the optimal design and functioning of political institutions. The majority rule is widely used to select policies in political institutions. Chapter 3 proves that this rule is not optimal for sufficiently complex policies. To address this issue, natural preference domains are identified for which the majority rule is optimal under a simple sequential procedure. Under this procedure, the majority rule guarantees the existence of a stable policy, ensures that all stable policies are efficient, and minimizes the status quo bias, no matter the complexity of the policy space. The results imply that this voting rule is not appropriate for certain types of societies, including sufficiently fractionalized societies.

Air transportation is essential to our society. It enables global trading, brings people together, and lets travelers explore distant parts of the world. However, flying is a highly unsustainable behavior and accounts for roughly 2% of all carbon emissions; with industry and research forecasting constant growth in the coming years. The economic benefits rhetoric often prevails over the environmental costs, though; motivating governments to give incentives to airports and airlines. The Swedish Government, despite its green goals and pro-sustainability actions, is no exception, and both municipal and federal funds support the air route network. This thesis reports on the development of the Publikvitto, a system designed to help citizen make sense of the government's incentives to the flying industry. The process is based on research through design and inspired by reflective practices. The primary outcome are insights into the relationship between designer, social issues, and government's actions; and how these elements can be approached in order to design artifacts that motivate people to engage in political discussions. / Att transportera sig med hjälp av flygplan är idag en självklarhet. Genom att flyga kan vi upptäcka andra delar av världen, träffa nya människor och få till internationella uppgörelser. Att flyga är dock ett mycket ohållbart sätt att transportera sig och svarar för ca 2% av all världens koldioxidutsläpp, där forskning och utveckling av industrin endast visar att dessa siffror kommer växa. Eftersom flygindustrin är en viktig del av samhället är dock de miljömässiga konsekvenserna förbisedda, där staterna snarare upprätthåller industrin genom bidrag och skattelättnader. Trots sina hållbara mål är Sveriges stat inget undantag. Denna studie handlar om utvecklingen av Publikvittot, ett system som är designat för att hjälpa oss som medborgare att förstå regeringens stöd och skattelättnader gentemot flygindustrin. Processen av utvecklandet är baserad på “forskning genom design” och inspirerad av reflekterande förhållningssätt. Slutsatser av denna studie handlar framför allt om insikter om relationen mellan designer, sociala problem och statens handlingar och hur dessa element kan bli bemötta för att designa produkter som motiverar människor att delta i politiska diskussioner.