To evaluate voting rules, it would be good to know what universe election outcomes are drawn from. Election theorists have postulated that elections might be drawn from various stochastic preference models, including the IC and IAC conditions, but these models induce empirically contradicted predictions. We use two distinct data sets, FairVote and German Politbarometer survey. Based on the data information, we suggest approaches that differ from those probabilistic models to better approximate the actual data in Chapter 3 and 4. Chapter 5 applies the spatial model for four-candidate in a three-dimensional setting. We also offer a significant gap between the actual and simulated data under the IAC conditions by comparing their statistical characteristics. / Doctor of Philosophy / Through the 1884 Third Reform Act, the plurality rule (or first-past-the-post system) runs to elect parliament members for the first time. More than a hundred years passed after the Act, and election theorists have suggested various alternatives, the plurality rule is the second most used rule worldwide for national elections for now. One main reason is that researchers do not reach an agreement on the best alternative rule. Theorists have evaluated different voting rules under probabilistic assumptions, but real-world examples contradict the predictions of these models. In this dissertation, we suggest different approaches provide a better approximation to the actual data. In Chapter 3 and 4, we go backward: analyze how voters of each preference order are distributed in real data first, then set a model for estimating the frequency of paradox. In chapter 5, we extend an existing model with higher dimensionality. Then using the model, we offer empirical evidence showing the gap between the actual and simulated data under a popular probabilistic model.

Les fondements philosophiques de la théorie du choix social sont l’objet de cette thèse. La théorie du choix social est un champ de l’économie normative qui traite de l’agrégation des préférences individuelles. L’objectif de ce travail est d’analyser les postulations philosophiques de la théorie du choix social afin de comprendre dans quelle mesure celle-ci pourrait contribuer à une théorie de la justice sociale basée sur les capabilités d’Amartya Sen. Ce travail est par conséquent élaboré à partir de l’idée d’une « approche comparative » de la justice sociale, défendue par Amartya Sen, et que ce dernier oppose à l’ « approche transcendantale » de John Rawls. Nous tentons d’y préciser l’interprétation de la théorie du choix social requise pour spécifier l’approche par les capabilités, et en particulier l’évaluation et la construction d’un indice de capabilités et de fonctionnements. Ce travail de thèse défend l’hypothèse selon laquelle la tension apparente entre l’agrégation des préférences et l’approche par les capabilités est due à une interprétation étroite du cadre conceptuel de la théorie du choix social. En effet, l’approche par les capabilités est généralement comprise comme incompatible avec le préférentialisme de la théorie du choix social. Cela est dû à ce que l’approche par les capabilités s’est construite en partie comme une réponse au problème des préférences adaptatives. Cette thèse consiste donc à élargir le champ des interprétations de la théorie du choix social et de son cadre conceptuel, principalement de sa base d’information.La première partie de ce travail de recherche traite la question suivante : les préférences sont-elles déterminées par une source individuelle pouvant être pensée indépendamment de sa position sociale et économique ? Afin de montrer que ce n’est pas nécessairement le cas sur le plan logique, nous y analysons trois types de base informationnelle : les utilités cardinales, les préférences ordinales et les capabilités.L’objectif de la seconde partie est de déterminer ce que les préférences décrivent. Nous y analysons d’une part la nature de la préférence elle-même dans ce contexte. S’agit-il d’une décision déterminant une action, d’un désir, d’un état mental ou encore d’un jugement de valeur ? D’autre part, les différents critères éthiques de préférence sont étudiés, à savoir le plaisir hédoniste, la satisfaction des désirs et un critère de bien-être objectif. Cette exploration nous amène à défendre la conclusion suivante : la conception des préférences la plus en phase avec la structure formelle de la théorie du choix social est une conception comparative requérant d’excellentes conditions cognitives pour que les préférences puissent être considérées à proprement parler comme les véritables préférences de l’agent.La troisième partie revient à l’approche des capabilités. L’argumentation s’appuie sur les conclusions des deux parties précédentes afin de jeter les bases d’une théorie de la justice démocratique et non-idéale basée sur les capabilités d’Amartya Sen. Dans cette partie, nous montrons qu’une évaluation des capabilités indépendante des préférences tend à nier l’importance de la liberté et de la qualité d’agent dans l’approche par les capabilités. Nous défendons donc l’hypothèse selon laquelle les capabilités et les fonctionnements comme objets de préférence permettent de filtrer celles-ci afin de parer au problème des préférences adaptatives. / This dissertation examines the philosophical foundations of social choice theory. Social choice theory is the area of normative economics which is concerned with the aggregation of individual preferences. The aim of this work is to investigate the philosophical assumptions of social choice theory in order to understand to what extent it can contribute to a theory of justice based on capabilities. Therefore, the dissertation is build up on Amartya Sen’s idea of a “comparative approach” of justice, as opposed to the Rawlsian “transcendental approach”. It is an attempt to precise which understanding of social choice theory is required to specify the capability approach, especially the evaluation and the indexing of capabilities. In this dissertation, we argue that the apparent tension between preference aggregation and capability approach is due to a narrow interpretation of social choice theory’s conceptual framework. Capability approach is generally conceived as non-compatible with the preferentalism of social choice theory: after all, capabilities are seen as a response to the recurring problem of adaptive preferences. This dissertation thus consists in widening the scope of interpretations of social choice theory framework. This research deals mainly with the informational basis of social choice theory.This dissertation is in three parts. The first part tackles the following problem: are preferences determined by an individual source that can be thought independently of its social and economic position? To answer these questions, three kinds of informational basis in social choice theory and normative economics are investigated: cardinal utilities, ordinal preferences and capabilities.The second part aims at defining what preferences do describe in this context. Firstly, the nature of preference itself is examined: can it be assimilated to choice? Or is it a mere evaluation? A desire? A mental state? This analysis points out the comparative structure of preferences. Secondly, the various ethical criteria of preference are investigated: hedonistic pleasure, desire satisfaction and objective well-being. We argue that preferences are better conceived as comparative evaluation and require actually excellent cognitive conditions to be truly the agent’s own real preferences.The third part goes back to capability approach. The argument relies on the previous results to build up a first account of a democratic non-ideal theory of justice based on capabilities. In this part, we show that a preference-independent capability evaluation turns out to dismiss the importance of freedom and agency in capability approach. Then we argue that capabilities and functionings as an object for preferences do provide a first filter against adaptive preferences.

Following the enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010, politicians, media, and lobbyists rendered a number of conflicting and confusing interpretations of its merits and demerits. Such interpretations intensified the skepticism and concerns of small business enterprise (SBE) owners. The purpose of this study was to develop a representative, prioritized list of SBE owners' concerns or resistance factors. The goal was to create a useful guide for SBE owners who are seeking ways to reducing the adverse financial impact of the law. With social choice theory as the theoretical framework, 50 randomly selected SBE owners across 5 distinct industry groups from Richmond, Virginia, participated in an online, cross-sectional, pairwise comparison survey. The overall results of an analytic hierarchy process indicated that the top-ranked resistance factor of SBE owners was insurance premiums, followed by quality of care and the tax burden. However, these rankings were not uniform among industry groups. With a focus on these crucial concerns, SBE owners could benefit by seeking approaches to reduce the business costs of health care. The implications for positive social change include the potential for business organizations, researchers, and policymakers to channel SBE owners' voice for a socioeconomic growth by addressing their concerns in seeking improvements from the ACA.

For the last thirty years or so, there has been a search underway for a theory that canaccommodate our intuitions in regard to moral duties to future generations. The object ofthis search has proved surprisingly elusive. The classical moral theories in the literature allhave perplexing implications in this area. Classical Utilitarianism, for instance, implies thatit could be better to expand a population even if everyone in the resulting populationwould be much worse off than in the original. The main problem has been to find an adequate population theory, that is, a theoryabout the moral value of states of affairs where the number of people, the quality of theirlives, and their identities may vary. Since, arguably, any reasonable moral theory has totake these aspects of possible states of affairs into account when determining the normativestatus of actions, the study of population theory is of general import for moral theory. A number of theories have been proposed in the literature that purport to avoidcounter-intuitive implications such as the one mentioned above. The suggestions arediverse: introducing novel ways of aggregating welfare into a measure of value, revising thenotion of a, life worth living, questioning the way we can compare and measure welfare,counting people's welfare differently depending on the temporal location or the modalfeatures of their lives, and challenging the logic of axiological and normative concepts. Weinvestigate the concepts and assumptions involved in these theories as well as theirimplications for population theory. In our discussion, we propose a number of intuitively appealing and logically weakadequacy conditions for an acceptable population theory. Finally, we consider whether it ispossible to find a theory that satisfies all of these conditions. We prove that no such theory exists.

Univ., Diss.--Jena, 2001.

Thesis (Ph. D.) - University of Göttingen, 2004.

The principal aim of this thesis is to elaborate a politicized reading of Amartya Sen's Capability Approach. It explores how capabilities are augmented through the forging of contentious political subjectivities. In it, I build on the criticism that Sen's framework can be more sensitive to questions of power and politics. Against some of his critics, however, I argue that its 'politicization' must focus analytical attention on politics as the struggle to produce subjects rather than limiting its understanding to negotiations over authority, resources and allocations. I draw on quantitative and qualitative analysis of ethnographic data from rural eastern India to substantiate my argument. The first two chapters outline the contours of the debates and introduce the social, economic and political life of the study localities. Each of the four subsequent chapters elucidates the manner in which the contentious processes through which political subjectivity are forged augments capabilities. In Chapter 3 I advance the case that any discussion on capabilities needs to analyze how subjects interrogate the relations of domination and subordination which they have hitherto been compelled to inhabit. Based on an analysis of the contentions spawned by the Indian Government's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, I point to how the notion of cooperative conflict is helpful in understanding these processes. In Chapter 4, I draw attention to the analytic importance that needs to be accorded to 'voice' in order to understand how subjects contest and reconstitute these relationships: I base my analysis on the claims made on elected representatives by different groups of people in respect to 'poverty cards'. This emphasis leads in Chapter 5 to an investigation of the ways in which agonistic exchanges in public spaces augments capabilities: this I do through an examination of two specific disputes involving a variety of local actors. I develop these insights further in Chapter 6 to show how our understanding of the processes through which capabilities may be enhanced gains analytically from an analysis of the manner in which subjects construct their identities. Chapter 7 concludes.

Kollektiva beslut blir en del av vardagen när grupper av människor står inför val. Vi anpassar ofta våra personliga övertygelser med hänsyn till våra vänner. Vi är naturligt beroende av lyckan hos dem som står oss nära. I det här exjobbet undersöker vi en befintlig empatimodell som används för att välja en vinnare från en uppsättning alternativ genom att använda poängbaserade omröstningsprocedurer. Vi visar att en liten modifikation av modellen är tillräcklig för att kunna använda överlägsna omröstningsprocedurer som bygger på parvisa jämförelser av alternativen. Sammanfattningsvis visar vi att det i grunden inte finns någon anledning att använda poängbaserade omröstningsprocedurer i de föreslagna modellerna, eftersom ett mer önskvärt resultat uppnås genom att använda de överlägsna omröstningsprocedurerna. / Social choice becomes a part of everyday life when groups of people are faced with decisions to make. We often adjust our personal beliefs with the respect to our friends. We are inherently dependent on the happiness of those near us. In this thesis, we investigate an existing empathy model that is used to select a winner in a set of alternatives by using scoring winner selection methods. We show that a slight modification of the model is enough to be able to use superior winner selection methods that are based on pairwise comparisons of alternatives. We show that there is essentially no reason to use scoring winner selection methods in the models proposed as a more desirable result is achieved by using superior winner selection methods.

by Chan Wai Yin. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 165-171). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Acknowledgements --- p.i / Abstract --- p.iii / List of tables --- p.viii / List of abbreviations --- p.ix / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / The Research Case --- p.2 / The Puzzle --- p.4 / Methodology --- p.6 / Outline of the Thesis --- p.8 / Chapter 2 --- Intergenerational Non-investment-inducing Public Goods and the State --- p.11 / National and Cultural pride as an Intergenerational Non-investment- inducing Public Good --- p.11 / The Nature of the State --- p.19 / Good State --- p.20 / """Neutral"" State" --- p.22 / Bad State --- p.24 / Chapter 3 --- China as an Entrepreneurial State --- p.33 / State Administration in China --- p.33 / Central-local Fiscal Relations from a Historical Perspective --- p.41 / Fragmented State Perspective --- p.45 / Entrepreneurial State Perspective --- p.47 / Public Choice's Critiques --- p.58 / China as an Entrepreneurial State: Revised --- p.66 / Chapter 4 --- Archaeological Protection in China --- p.68 / Archaeological Protection in Democratic Countries --- p.68 / National Laws and Regulations of Archaeological Protection in China --- p.75 / Difficulties Encountered in Archaeological Protection --- p.87 / Chapter 5 --- Preservation of the Relics of the Nanyue Kingdom in Guangzhou --- p.94 / The City of Guangzhou --- p.94 / Regulations on the Protection of the Cultural Relics in the Guangdong Province and Guangzhou --- p.96 / Archaeological Protection in Guangzhou --- p.99 / The Preservation of the Royal Relics of the Nanyue Kingdom --- p.101 / Chapter 6 --- The Political Logic of Preserving Cultural Legacy --- p.118 / Identifying the Individual Actor: Mayors of Guangzhou --- p.119 / Chinese Officials as a Political Actor --- p.121 / Establishing a Modern Civil Service --- p.122 / A Performance-based Civil Service --- p.126 / The Political Logic of Preservation of Cultural Legacy in Guangzhou --- p.133 / Chapter 7 --- Conclusion --- p.146 / The Provision of Intergenerational Non-investment-inducing Public Goods --- p.146 / Public Choice Theory and the Entrepreneurial State Perspective --- p.148 / Reflections on the Study of Chinese Politics --- p.158 / Limitations of the Study --- p.161 / Bibliography --- p.165

Ce travail structuré en deux parties, porte sur l'étude des interactions entre des agents. Nous nous intéressons à la représentation conceptuelle du cadre et de ses règles de fonctionnement, à la mesure du pouvoir ou capacité des agents à influencer l'aboutissement des interactions et à l'analyse des aboutissements qui peuvent être considérés comme meilleurs.Dans la première partie, nous considérons des agents qui visent un objectif commun dépendant des facteurs distincts. Par exemple, dans un jeu avec abstention (Felsenthal et Machover (1997)) ou plus généralement dans les (j,k)-jeux, de Freixas et Zwicker (2003), des votes de natures différentes peuvent compter favorablement au résultat. Comme modèle, nous développons les jeux multi-types dans lesquels chacun tient un rôle précis dans un groupe. Ce modèle est proche de celui de Bolger (1986) où les rôles ne sont pas comparables. Dans ce cadre, nous proposons des extensions des indices de Shapley-Shubik (1954) et Banzhaf (1965). En prenant en compte une structure de coalitions sur l'ensemble des agents, nous reprenons l'étude avec les indices d'Owen-Shapley (1977) et Owen-Banzhaf (1981).Dans la deuxième partie, nous utilisons les positions des joueurs dans l'espace multidimensionnel pour modéliser des liens entre eux. Les indices d'Owen (1971) et de Shapley (1977) s'appliquent à ce cadre. Nous montrons que le second généralise le premier puis, nous les généralisons. Le cœur (Plott (1967)), le Yolk (Miller (1980), McKelvey (1986)) et le Finagle (Wuffle et al. (1989)) sont trois concepts de solution spatiale. Le Yolk est une région hypersphérique dont le centre est souvent supposé unique (Scott et Grofman (1988), Tovey (1992)). Nous le généralisons et nous montrons que son unicité n'est vraie que dans un espace bidimensionnel. En admettant qu'on peut se tromper sur la localisation spatiale, nous proposons une généralisation du cœur similaire à celle proposée par Bräuninger (2007), des études comparatives avec le Yolk et le Finagle sont faites. / This work structured into two parts, focuses on the study of interactions among agents. We are interested in the conceptual framework and its operating rules, the measurement of power or ability of agents to influence the outcome of interactions and analysis of outcomes which can be considered to be the best.In the first part, we consider that there is a set of agents who have a common objective which depends on different factors. For example, in a game with abstention (Felsenthal et Machover (1997)) or more generally in the (j,k)-games of Freixas and Zwicker (2003), the votes of different natures can contribute positively to the result. We use the model of multi-types games in which each agent has a specific role in a group. This model is similar to that of Bolger (1986) in which the roles are not comparable. In this context, we extend the Shapley-Shubik (1954) and Banzhaf (1981) power indices. We reconsider the multi-types games with the Owen-Shapley (1977) and Owen-Banzhaf (1965) power indices through the lens of a coalition structures on the set of agents.In the second part, we use the player positions in a multidimensional space to model the links among them. The Owen (1971) and Shapley (1977) power indices are developed in this framework. We show that the second generalizes the first and we extend them. The core (Plott (1967)), the Yolk (Miller (1980), McKelvey (1986)) and the Finagle (Wuffle et al. (1989)) are three concepts of spatial solution. The Yolk is an hyperspherical region whose center is often assumed unique (Tovey (1992), Scott et Grofman (1988)). We generalize this concept and show that uniqueness is only true on the bidimensional space. We consider the situation in which the social planner has a partial knowledge on the spatial location of agents and propose a generalization of the core similar to one of Bräuninger (2007). Comparative studies with the olk and the Finagle are made.