Peter Emerson, Ed., Designing An All-inclusive Democracy: Consensual Voting Procedures For Use In Parliaments, Councils And Committees

摘要

The inclination to identify the popular will with the recipient of a majority of votes has been criticized on a number of fronts (for example, Riker 1982). Peter Emerson's edited volume, Designing an All-inclusive Democracy: Consensual Voting Procedures For Use in Parliaments, Councils and Committees, offers an alternative, "non-adversarial democratic structure" (p. 1). In describing multi-option, preferential voting procedures, the book fits squarely into a tradition that extends from the work of the Count de Borda (and prior, p. 7) to more recent works such as Donald G. Saari's paradigmatic Decisions and Elections: Explaining the Unexpected (2001). Of particular note in Emerson's volume is its success at making the discussion accessible to social choice and voting theory novices, a product of the authors' attempt to bridge the divide between practical and theoretical "traditions of enquiry into voting procedures" (Dummett 1984, p. 294). Equally noteworthy is the continued emphasis on the "constructive debate" (p. 3) that should precede the vote.