Issue: 2016/Vol.26/No.2, Pages 31-52
DIMENSION, EGALITARIANISM AND DECISIVENESS OF EUROPEAN VOTING SYSTEMS
Francesc Carreras
, Josep Freixas, Antonio Magaña
Cite as: F. Carreras, J. Freixas, A. Magaña. Dimension, egalitarianism and decisiveness of European voting systems. Operations Research and Decisions 2016: 26(2), 31-52. DOI 10.5277/ord160203
Abstract
An analysis of three major aspects has been carried out that may apply to any of the successive voting systems used for the European Union Council of Ministers, from the first one established in the Treaty of Rome in 1958 to the current one established in Lisbon. We mainly consider the voting systems designed for the enlarged European Union adopted in the Athens summit, held in April 2003 but this analysis can be applied to any other system. First, it is shown that the dimension of these voting systems does not, in general, reduce. Next, the egalitarian effects of superposing two or three weighted majority games (often by introducing additional consensus) are considered. Finally, the decisiveness of these voting systems is evaluated and compared.
Keywords: voting systems, simple games, weighted majority games, Shapley–Shubik power index, dimension, egalitarianism, decisiveness
Received: 24 April 2016 Accepted: 14 July 2016