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THIS book or some related work has occupied me spasmodically over rather a long period, in fact ever since I listened to the class lectures of Professor A. K. White on the possibility of forming a pure science of Politics. Mter an earlier version of Part I had failed to obtain publication in 1947, some chapters appeared as articles, and I am obliged to the editors of the journals mentioned below for permission to reprint this material, sometimes in a modified form. When I first attempted publication I was unacquainted with the earlier history of the theory, and, indeed, did not even know that it had a history; and the later additions to the book have largely been by way of writing the present Part II. This historical section does not include the important recent work, Social Ohoice and Individual Values (1951), of Professor Kenneth J. Arrow; but it does include all the mathematical work on committees and elections appearing before the middle of this century which has come to my notice, although the last item in it is dated 1907. No doubt there is much important material which I have failed to see. The theorizing of the book grew out of a reading of the English political philosophers and of the Italian writers on Public Finance. At a very early stage I was helped to find the general lines of development by discussion with my colleague Professor Ronald H.

R. H. Coase Duncan Black was a close and dear friend. A man of great simplicity, un worldly, modest, diffident, with no pretensions, he was devoted to scholarship. In his single-minded search for the truth, he is an example to us all. Black's first degree at the University of Glasgow was in mathematics and physics. Mathematics as taught at Glasgow seems to have been designed for engineers and did not excite him and he switched to economics, which he found more congenial. But it was not in a lecture in economics but in one on politics that he found his star. One lecturer, A. K. White, discussed the possibility of constructing a pure science of politics. This question caught his imagination, perhaps because of his earlier training in physics, and it came to absorb his thoughts for the rest of his life. But almost certainly nothing would have come of it were it not for his appointment to the newly formed Dundee School of Economics where the rest of the. teaching staff came from the London School of Economics. At Glasgow, economics, as in the time of Adam Smith, was linked with moral philosophy. At Dundee, Black was introduced to the analytical x The Theory o/Committees and Elections approach dominant at the London School of Economics. This gave him the approach he used in his attempt to construct a pure science of politics.

Duncan Black aims to formulate a pure science of politics by focusing on mathematics of committees and elections.

`This is a book about a well-known writer, Lewis Carroll, and about a little-known subject, the theory of voting' (from the Editors' Introduction). This book has been edited from the manuscripts of the late Scottish economist Duncan Black. Shortly after the publication of The Theory of Committees and Elections Black started to collect material for papers and a book on Lewis Carroll's theory of proportional representation. Black's chapter plans made it clear that the book was to be in three parts, written by himself, followed by a reprint of Carroll's Principles of Parliamentary Representation and its main sources. Part I is biographical, introducing Lewis Carroll and giving relevant details of his life. Part II is Black's already published work on Lewis Carroll. Part III comprises the more detailed arguments about Carroll's reasoning, and Part IV contains reprints of rare original material on proportional representation by Carroll, James Garth Marshall, and Walter Baily. Taken together, the editors have provided a complete reference source for the theory of voting and proportional representation.

Books about The Theory of Committees and Elections

Books about Theories of Optimal Party Decision Making

The text is technically precise but at the same time accessible, and is carried forward by numerous examples. The chapters focus on vote counting rules, voting agendas, voter preferences, sincere and sophisticated voting strategies, solution sets, voting outcomes, agendas control, and agenda formation. The author himself has made prior research contributions to a number of these topics.

R. H. Coase Duncan Black was a close and dear friend. A man of great simplicity, un worldly, modest, diffident, with no pretensions, he was devoted to scholarship. In his single-minded search for the truth, he is an example to us all. Black's first degree at the University of Glasgow was in mathematics and physics. Mathematics as taught at Glasgow seems to have been designed for engineers and did not excite him and he switched to economics, which he found more congenial. But it was not in a lecture in economics but in one on politics that he found his star. One lecturer, A. K. White, discussed the possibility of constructing a pure science of politics. This question caught his imagination, perhaps because of his earlier training in physics, and it came to absorb his thoughts for the rest of his life. But almost certainly nothing would have come of it were it not for his appointment to the newly formed Dundee School of Economics where the rest of the. teaching staff came from the London School of Economics. At Glasgow, economics, as in the time of Adam Smith, was linked with moral philosophy. At Dundee, Black was introduced to the analytical x The Theory o/Committees and Elections approach dominant at the London School of Economics. This gave him the approach he used in his attempt to construct a pure science of politics.

This comprehensive Handbook takes a multidisciplinary approach to the study of parliaments, offering novel insights into the key aspects of legislatures, legislative institutions and legislative politics. Connecting rich and diverse fields of inquiry, it illuminates how the study of parliaments has shaped a wider understanding surrounding politics and society over the past decades.

This book provides an introduction to an important approach to the study of voting and elections: the spatial theory of voting. In contrast to the social-psychological approach to studying voting behaviour, the spatial theory of voting is premised on the idea of self-interested choice. Voters cast votes on the basis of their evaluation of the candidates or policy alternatives competing for their vote. Candidates fashion their appeals to the voters in an effort to win votes. The spatial theory provides explicit definitions for these behavioural assumptions to determines the form that self-interested behaviour will take. The consequences of this behaviour for the type of candidate or policy that voters will select is the major focus of the theory. There is a twofold purpose to this work. The first is to provide an elementary but rigourous introduction to an important body of political science research. The second is to design and test a spatial theory of elections that provides insights into the nature of election contests. The book will appeal to a wide audience, since the mathematics is kept to an accessible level.

A scientific study of the political and economic factors influencing democratic decision making

Based on the European Consortium for Political Research Workshop, held at the University of Grenoble, 1978. Includes bibliographical references.