Voting Power and Probability

Voting power is commonly measured using a probability. But what kind of probability is this? Is it a degree of belief or an objective chance or some other sort of probability? The aim of this paper is to answer this question. The answer depends on the use to which a measure of voting power is put. Some objectivist interpretations of probabilities are appropriate when we employ such a measure for descriptive purposes. By contrast, when voting power is used to normatively assess voting rules, the probabilities are best understood as classical probabilities, which count possibilities. This is so because, from a normative stance, voting power is most plausibly taken to concern rights and thus possibilities. The classical interpretation also underwrites the use of the Bernoulli model upon which the Penrose/Banzhaf measure is based.

A Model of Rights

In this paper, we develop a simple model of the rights a government provides its citizenry. Rights are treated as public goods and taken as primitives in agents utility functions; each agent has preferences over the entire policy vector. We model the interaction among citi-zens and the government as a game in which an exogenous lobbying set makes contributions to the government to in uence policy formu-lation in the matter of rights. When examining contribution schedules comprising truthful Nash strategies, we find that members of the lob-bying set obtain rights closer to their most-preferred bundle, while the rights of non-lobbyers further diverge from their most-preferred bun-dle. Further, if the lobbying set comprises the entire population, the government s allocation of rights does not differ from the allocation achieved in the absence of contributions.

1 + 1 = 3? EU-US voting cohesion in the United Nations General Assembly. EU Diplomacy Paper 07/2012, September 2012

This paper investigates the factors that explain the voting cohesion of the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) on foreign policy issues in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). It is often argued that the EU and the US are simply too different to cooperate within international organizations and thus to vote the same way, for example, in the UNGA. However, there is still a lack of research on this point and, more importantly, previous studies have not analyzed which factors explain EU-US voting cohesion. In this paper, I try to fill this gap by studying voting cohesion from 1980 until 2011 on issues of both ‘high’ politics (security) and ‘low’ politics (human rights) not only as regards EU-US voting cohesion, but also concerning voting cohesion among EU member states. I test six hypotheses derived from International Relations theories, and I argue that EU-US voting cohesion is best explained by the topic of the issue voted upon, whether an issue is marked as ‘important’ by the US government, and by the type of resolution. On the EU level, the length of Union membership and transaction costs matter most.

1961 Commission on Civil Rights report.

Spine and cover title: 1961 United States Commission on Civil Rights report.

The truth about "The voting machine deal".

Mode of access: Internet.

A stochastic model for prisoner's dilemma.

Includes bibliography.

Journal of the Constitutional convention of the commonwealth of Virginia to amend the Constitution of Virginia for voting by certain members of the armed forces. Held in the old hall of the House of delegates in the state Capitol at Richmond April 30, May 1, 2, 22, 1945 [and]

J. Sinclair Brown, president of the convention

Journal of Alfred Ely, a prisoner of war in Richmond /

Appendix, p. [281]-359, contains a list of Union prisoners in Southern prison camps.

Parliamentary law and rules of procedure : a manual of practical information concerning deliberative bodies; motions and their purpose and relation; voting; elections; committees; officers and debate; together with model forms and reference charts; in accordance with Robert's rules of order, revised 1915 /

Mode of access: Internet.

Paul Vernon, prisoner.

Appendix "Open letter to the Ohio Legislature": [l] ℓ., [2] p.

I was Castro's prisoner: an American tells his story.

Mode of access: Internet.

In Ruhleben, letters from a prisoner to his mother, with an account of the "university" life, classes, sports, good, accommodation, etc., of the internment camp of British prisoners,

Mode of access: Internet.

Memoirs of Count Lally, from his embarking for the East Indies, as Commander in Chief of the French forces in that country, to his being sent prisoner of war to England, after the surrender of Pondichery : consisting of pieces written by himself and addressed to his judges, in answer to the charges brought against him by the attorney general of his Most Christian Majesty ... to which are added accounts of the prior part of his life, his condemnation, and execution; with such other pieces, (most of them produced on his trial) as were thought most necessary to illustrate his civil and military character.

Mode of access: Internet.

St. Ives; being the adventures of a French prisoner in England,

" ... The ... task of supplying the missing chapters has been intrusted to Mr. Quiller-Couch, whose work begins at chapter xxxi."--Editorial note.