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Electoral Systems pp 129–150Cite as

Which Voting Rule Minimizes the Probability of the Referendum Paradox? Lessons from French Data

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Part of the book series: Studies in Choice and Welfare ((WELFARE))

Abstract

Amajor goal of democracy is to achieve equal representation of the citizens. Though equal representation can be easily achieved when all the voters directly select a president or decide on a policy through a referendum, the issue is not that simple for indirect democracy. A crucial question thus relates to the choice of the “best” two-tier voting rules. More precisely, how many mandates should be allocated to each jurisdiction (examples being electoral constituencies, local jurisdictions, regions, states, countries) in this type of system? Which quota should be used for decision? Very different answers to these questions were adopted by the various federal structures.

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Acknowledgements

Some parts of the research reported in this paper were presented at the Leverhulme Trust sponsored 2010 Voting Power in Practice workshop held at Chateau du Baffy, Normandy, from 30 July to 2 August 2010. We are grateful to the participants of this workshop for comments and suggestions. We also thank an anonymous referee for his remarks. Special thanks are due to Dan Felsenthal for is careful reading of the last version of the paper. This paper is part of the SOLITER project selected in the “Gouverner, administrer” program by the French Agence Nationale pour la Recherche (ANR) and has benefited from the ANR-08-GOUV-054 grant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mohammed First University-EST Oujda, Université Mohammed Premier, 473, 60000, Oujda, Maroc

    Rahhal Lahrach

  2. CREM, Université de Caen Basse Normandie and CNRS, 19 rue Claude Bloch, 14032, Caen Cedex, France

    Vincent Merlin

Authors
  1. Rahhal Lahrach
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  2. Vincent Merlin
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Correspondence to Vincent Merlin .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , School of Political Sciences, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa, 31905, Israel

    Dan S. Felsenthal

  2. , Department of Philosophy, King's College London, Strand, London, WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom

    Moshé Machover

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Lahrach, R., Merlin, V. (2012). Which Voting Rule Minimizes the Probability of the Referendum Paradox? Lessons from French Data. In: Felsenthal, D., Machover, M. (eds) Electoral Systems. Studies in Choice and Welfare. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20441-8_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20441-8_5

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-20440-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-20441-8

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