This course is an introduction to modeling social choice processes. You will be introduced to a set of analytic tools that are used to explain and predict collective choices under a variety of political settings. Social choice theory is concerned with the collective choice rules that define a political context.

Although many of the tools used during the course are mathematical in nature, there is no prerequisite in mathematical skills for people taking this course. The topics will be developed from the ground up. While a basic understanding of algebraic manipulation is useful, more important is an open mind, ability to reason in the abstract, and a willingness to explore. Do not be frightened by what you read. One of the principal aims of this course is to help make this material accessible. Even a cursory reading of the journals will indicate the extent to which formal work has found its way into the journals. By the end of this course you should be able to plow your way through most of these articles, understanding the main point and whether that point is important or trivial.

Course Requirements:

The course will be run as a seminar. A seminar means that you will be treated as a "junior colleague." Everyone is expected to contribute to discussion. As a consequence, completing the reading prior to each class meeting is crucial. This will enable you to ask questions of material that is unclear (and some of it will be) and to force the members of the seminar (including the instructor) to keep on the ball. The readings will involve substantial use of the library facilities, since almost all of the readings are journal articles. To facilitate everyone in the class getting their hands on the material, please return journals to where you found them once you have finished.

To help you sift through some of the technical complexity in the course you will have an assignment due each week. The assignment will vary from week to week. Sometimes it will be problem sets. Sometimes it will involve dissecting a specific article. Your assignment will be due at 4 pm on the Monday before the Tuesday class. This will let me gauge where the material is confusing. In order to make this course run smoothly everyone must turn his or her work in on time! Stragglers will be regarded with ill humor. The work can be emailed to me or hand delivered to me.

You will also be required to write a final paper for the class (no more than 15 pages). The paper will be very simple. I want you to choose an article from the journals and provide an extension. I would prefer a minor, formal, extension. However, a ñwordî extension would be equally acceptable.

Grading:

Grading is relatively straightforward.

Problem Sets 60%

Final Paper 20%

Class Participation 20%

Materials:

Most of the materials are readily available in the journals. Material that is not readily available will be in my "yellow" box in the mailroom. The readings may change over time. Supplemental readings may be introduced. Prepare to be a bit flexible. In addition, you might pay attention to any of the following journals.

 

International Journal of Game Theory	Public Choice
Quality and Quantity	Social Choice and Welfare
Econometrica	Quarterly Journal of Economics
Review of Economic Studies	American Economic Review
Review of Economic Studies	Simulation and Games
Journal of Economic Theory	Theory and Decision

The scheduled readings are as follows. Keep in mind that the management reserves its right to change the readings.

Date	Topic	Readings
Aug. 27	Introduction. Formal Notation	(Thomson 1999) Suggested: (Austen-Smith and Banks 1988)
Sep. 3	The Joy of Modeling	(Lave and March 1975), Chs. 1-3 (Fiorina 1975)
Sep. 10	Utility Theory and Decision Theory	(Lave and March 1975), Chs. 4-5 (Shoemaker 1982) Suggested: (Quattrone and Tversky 1988) Luce and Raiffa, 1957. Games and Decisions. Ch. 2 (Kachelmeier and Shehata 1992)
Sep. 17	Risk and Utility	(Camerer 1998) (Starmer 2000) (Battalio, Kagel et al. 1985)
Sep. 24	Aggregation of Preferences	(Austen-Smith and Banks 1999), Chapter 1 Suggested: (Plott 1976) (Downs 1957)
Oct. 1	Arrow	(Austen-Smith and Banks 1999), Chapter 2, pp. 25-38 (Nurmi 1983) Suggested: (Arrow 1963), Chapters 1-5 (Riker 1982), Chapter 5
Oct. 8	Arrow	(Austen-Smith and Banks 1999), Chapter 2, pp. 38-56. (Haney, Herzberg, and Wilson 1992) (Plott and Levine 1978)
Oct. 15	Fall Break
Oct. 22	Unidimensional Model	(Austen-Smith and Banks 1999), Chapter 4, pp. 93-106 (Enelow 1984), Chapters 1-2 (Morton 1993) (Nielson and Shugart 1999) (Crombez 1997) Suggested: (Black 1948) (Downs 1957), Chapters 8-10.
Oct. 29	Unidimensional Models, II	(Austen-Smith and Banks 1999), Chapter 4, pp. 106-117 (Volden 1998) (Eavey and Miller 1984) (McGann 2002) (Brams, Jones, and Kilgour 2002)
Nov. 5	Multidimensional Models, I	(Enelow 1984), Chapter 3 (Morrow 1986) (Schofield, Grofman, and Feld 1988) (Hug 1999)
Nov. 12	Structure Induced Equilibrium, I	(Austen-Smith and Banks 1999), Chapter 5, 118-132 (Riker 1980) (Shepsle 1979) (Dion 1992) (Huber 1996)
Nov. 19	Structure Induced Equilibrium, II	(Wilson 1986) (Hammond and Miller 1987) (Heller 1997) (Carey 2000) (Downs, Rocke, and Barsoom 1998)
Nov. 26	Bringing It Together	Unknown Author -- LSQ Review

Readings:

Arrow, Kenneth J. 1963. Social Choice and Individual Values. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Austen-Smith, D. and J. S. Banks (1988). "Social Choice Theory, Game Theory, and Positive Political Theory." Annual Review of Political Science 1: 259-287.

Austen-Smith, D. and J. S. Banks (1999). Positive Political Theory I: Collective Preference. Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan Press.

Battalio, R., J. Kagel, et al. (1985). "Animals' Choices over Uncertain Outcomes." American Economic Review 75: 597-613.

Black, Duncan. 1948. On the Rationale of Group Decision Making. Journal of Political Economy 22-34.

Brams, Steven J., Michael A Jones, and D. Marc Kilgour. 2002. Single-Peakedness and Disconnected Coalitions. Journal of Theoretical Politics 14 (3):359-383.
Camerer, C. (1998). "Bounded Rationality in Individual Decision Making." Experimental Economics 1(2): 163-183.

Carey, John M. 2000. Parchment, equilibria, and institutions. Comparative Political Studies 33 (6-7):735-761.

Crombez, Christophe. 1997. The Co-Decision Procedure in the European Union. Legislative Studies Quarterly 22 (1):97-119.

Dion, Douglas. 1992. The Robustness of the Structure Induced Equilibrium. American Journal of Political Science 36: 462-482.

Downs, A. (1957). An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York, Harper and Row.

Downs, George W., David M. Rocke, and Peter N. Barsoom. 1998. Managing the evolution of multilateralism. International Organization 52 (2).

Eavey, Cheryl L., and Gary J. Miller. 1984. Bureaucratic Agenda Control: Imposition or Bargaining? American Political Science Review 78 (3):719-733.
Enelow, James M. and Melvin. J. Hinich. 1984. The Spatial Theory of Voting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Fiorina, M. P. (1975). "Formal Models in Political Science." American Journal of Political Science 19: 133-159.

Hammond, Thomas, and Gary J. Miller. 1987. The Core of the Constitution. American Political Science Review 81:1155-1174.

Haney, Patrick, Roberta Herzberg, and Rick K. Wilson. 1992. Advice and Consent: Unitary Actors, Advisory Models and Experimental Tests. Journal of Conflict Resolution 36 (4):603-633.

Heller, William B. 1997. Bicameralism and budget deficits: The effect of parliamentary structure on government spending. Legislative Studies Quarterly 22 (4):485-516.

Huber, John D. 1996. The Vote of Confidence in Parliamentary Democracies. American Political Science Review 90 (2):269-282.

Hug, Simon. 1999. Nonunitary Actors in Spatial Models. Journal of Conflict Resolution 43 (4):479-500.

Kachelmeier, S. J. and M. Shehata (1992). "Examining Risk Preferences Under High Monetary Incentives: Experimental Evidence from the People's Republic of China." American Economic Review 82(5): 1120-1141.

Lave, C. and J. March (1975). An Introduction to Models in the Social Sciences. New York, Harper and Row.

McGann, A.J. 2002. The Advantages of Ideological Cohesion: A Model of Constituency Representation and Electoral Competition in Multi-Party Democracies. Journal of Theoretical Politics 14 (1):37-70.
Morrow, James D. 1986. A Spatial Model of International Conflict. American Political Science Review 80 (4):1131-1150.

Morton, Rebecca B. 1993. Incomplete Information and Ideological Explanations of Platform Divergence. American Political Science Review 87 (2):382-392.

Nielson, Daniel L., and Matthew Soberg Shugart. 1999. Constitutional Change In Colombia: Policy Adjustment Through Institutional Reform. Comparative Political Studies 33 (3):313-341.

Nurmi, Hannu. 1983. Voting Procedures: A Summary Analysis. British Journal of Political Science 13 (2):181-208.

Plott, C. R. (1976). "Axiomatic Social Choice Theory." American Journal of Political Science 20: 511-96.

Plott, Charles R., and Michael E. Levine. 1978. A Model of Agenda Influence on Committee Decisions. American Economic Review 68:146-60.

Quattrone, G. A. and A. Tversky (1988). "Contrasting Rational and Psychological Analyses of Political Choice." American Political Science Review 82(3): 719-736.

Riker, Willam H. 1982. Liberalism Against Populism. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Co.

Riker, William H. 1980. Implications from the Disequilibrium of Majority Rule for the Study of Institutions. American Political Science Review 74:432-446.

Schofield, Norman, Bernard Grofman, and Scott L. Feld. 1988. The Core and the Stability of Group Choices in Spatial Voting Games. American Political Science Review 82:195-211.

Shepsle, K. A. 1979. Institutional Arrangements and Equilibrium in Multidimensional Voting Models. American Journal of Political Science 23:27-59.

Shoemaker, P. J. H. (1982). "The Expected Utility Model: Its Variants, Purposes, Evidence and Limitations." Journal of Economic Literature 20(2): 529-563.

Starmer, C. (2000). "Developments in Non-Expected Utility theory: The Hunt for a Descriptive Theory of Choice under Risk." Journal of Economic Literature 38(2): 332-382.

Thomson, W. (1999). "The Young Person's Guide to Writing Economic Theory." Journal of Economic Literature 37: 157-183.
Volden, Craig. 1998. Sophisticated Voting in Supermajoritarian Settings. Journal of Politics 60 (1):149-173.

Wilson, Rick K. 1986. Forward and Backward Agenda Procedures: Committee Experiments on Structurally Induced Equilibrium. Journal of Politics 48:390-409.