Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-mzp66 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-13T01:35:58.105Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Model of Path-Dependence in Decisions over Multiple Propositions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2004

CHRISTIAN LIST
CHRISTIAN LIST
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I model sequential decisions over multiple interconnected propositions and investigate path-dependence in such decisions. The propositions and their interconnections are represented in propositional logic. A sequential decision process is path-dependent if its outcome depends on the order in which the propositions are considered. Assuming that earlier decisions constrain later ones, I prove three main results: First, certain rationality violations by the decision-making agent—individual or group—are necessary and sufficient for path-dependence. Second, under some conditions, path-dependence is unavoidable in decisions made by groups. Third, path-dependence makes decisions vulnerable to strategic agenda setting and strategic voting. I also discuss escape routes from path-dependence. My results are relevant to discussions on collective consistency and reason-based decision-making, focusing not only on outcomes, but also on underlying reasons, beliefs, and constraints.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 98 , Issue 3 , August 2004 , pp. 495 - 513
Copyright
© 2004 by the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aragones E., I. Gilboa, A. Postlewaite, and D. Schmeidler. 2002 “Rhetoric and Analogies.” Working paper. Department of Economics, Tel-Aviv University.
Arrow K. J. 1951. Social Choice and Individual Values. New York: Wiley.
Black D. 1948. “On the Rationale of Group Decision-Making.” Journal of Political Economy 56 (February): 23– 34.Google Scholar
Brennan G. 2001. “Collective Coherence?” International Review of Law and Economics 21 (June): 197– 211.Google Scholar
Chapman B. 1998. “More Easily Done than Said: Rules, Reason and Rational Social Choice.” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 18 (Summer): 293– 330.Google Scholar
Chapman B. 2002. “Rational Aggregation.” Politics, Philosophy and Economics 1 (October): 337– 54.Google Scholar
Coleman J., and J. Ferejohn. 1986. “Democracy and Social Choice.” Ethics 97 (October): 6– 25.Google Scholar
Craven J. 1971. “Majority Voting and Social Choice.” Review of Economic Studies 38 (April): 265– 67.Google Scholar
Dietrich F. 2003 “Judgment Aggregation: (Im)possibility Theorems.” Working paper. Group on Philosophy, Probability and Modeling, University of Konstanz.
Dryzek J., and C. List. 2002. “Social Choice Theory and Deliberative Democracy: A Reconciliation.” British Journal of Political Science 33 (January): 1– 28.Google Scholar
Dworkin R. M. 1986. Law's empire. London: Fontana.
Ferejohn J., and D. Grether. 1974. “On a Class of Rational Social Decision Procedures.” Journal of Economic Theory 8 (August): 471– 82.Google Scholar
Gibbard A. 1973. “Manipulation of Voting Schemes: A General Result.” Econometrica 41 (July): 587– 601.Google Scholar
Guilbaud G. Th. 1966. “Theories of the General Interest, and the Logical Problem of Aggregation.” In Readings in Mathematical Social Science, ed. P. F. Lazarsfeld and N. W. Henry. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 262– 307.
Knight J., and J. Johnson. 1994. “Aggregation and Deliberation: On the Possibility of Democratic Legitimacy.” Political Theory 22 (May): 277– 96.Google Scholar
Kornhauser L. A. 1992. “Modeling Collegial Courts I: Path-Dependence.” International Review of Law and Economics 12 (June): 169– 85.Google Scholar
Kornhauser L. A., and L. G. Sager. 1986. “Unpacking the Court.” Yale Law Journal 96 (November): 82– 117.Google Scholar
List C. 2003. “A Possibility Theorem on Aggregation over Multiple Interconnected Propositions.” Mathematical Social Sciences 45 (February): 1– 13.Google Scholar
List C., and P. Pettit. 2002. “Aggregating Sets of Judgments: An Impossibility Result.” Economics and Philosophy 18 (April): 89– 110.Google Scholar
List C., and P. Pettit. 2003 “Aggregating Sets of Judgments: Two Impossibility Results Compared.” Synthese. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
McLean I. 2002. “William H. Riker and the Invention of Heresthetic(s).” British Journal of Political Science 32 (July): 538– 58.Google Scholar
Miller G., and N. Schofield. 2003. “Activists and Partisan Realignment in the United States.” American Political Science Review 97 (April): 245– 60.Google Scholar
Miller D. 1992. “Deliberative Democracy and Social Choice.” Political Studies 40 (Special Issue): 54– 67.Google Scholar
Muller E., and M. Satterthwaite. 1977. “The Equivalence of Strong Positive Association and Strategy-Proofness.” Journal of Economic Theory 14 (April): 412– 18.Google Scholar
Myerson R. B. 1996 “Fundamentals of Social Choice Theory.” Working paper. CMS-EMS, Northwestern University.
Murakami Y. 1968. Logic and Social Choice. London: Routledge.
Nehring K., and C. Puppe. 2002 “Strategy-Proof Social Choice on Single-Peaked Domains.” Working paper. Department of Economics, University of California at Davis.
Page S. E. 1997. “An Appending Efficient Algorithm for Allocating Public Projects with Positive Complementarities.” Journal of Public Economics 64 (June): 291– 444.Google Scholar
Page S. E. 2003 “A Path Dependence Primer.” Working paper. Department of Political Science, University of Michigan.
Pauly M., and M. van Hees. 2003 “Some General Results on the Aggregation of Individual Judgments.” Working paper. Department of Computer Science, University of Liverpool.
Pettit P. 1997. Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pettit P. 2001a. “Deliberative Democracy and the Discursive Dilemma.” Philosophical Issues 11 (October): 268– 99.Google Scholar
Pettit P. 2001b. A Theory of Freedom. New York: O.U.P.
Plott C. 1973. “Path Independence, Rationality, and Social Choice.” Econometrica 41 (November): 1075– 91.Google Scholar
Plott C., and M. Levine. 1978. “A Model of Agenda Influence on Committee Decisions.” American Economics Review 68 (March): 146– 60.Google Scholar
Riker W. H. 1982. Liberalism against Populism. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.
Riker W. H. 1986. The Art of Political Manipulation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Rott H. 2001. Change, Choice and Inference: A Study of Belief Revision and Nonmonotonic Reasoning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Satterthwaite M. 1975. “Strategy-Proofness and Arrow's Conditions: Existence and Correspondence Theorems for Voting Procedures and Social Welfare Functions.” Journal of Economic Theory 10 (April): 187– 217.Google Scholar
Schwartz T. 1981. “The Universal-Instability Theorem.” Public Choice 37 (3): 487– 501.Google Scholar
Sen A. K. 1966. “A Possibility Theorem on Majority Decisions.” Econometrica 34 (April): 491– 99.Google Scholar
Sen A. K. 1970. Collective Choice and Social Welfare. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Shepsle K. A. 1979. “Institutional Arrangements and Equilibrium in Multidimensional Voting Models.” American Journal of Political Science 23 (February): 27– 59.Google Scholar
Stone Sweet A. 2002. “Path Dependence, Precedent, and Judicial Power.” In On Law, Politics, and Judicialization, ed. M. Shapiro and A. Stone Sweet. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 112– 35.
Taylor A. D. 2002 “The Manipulability of Voting Systems.“ American Mathematical Monthly 109 (April): 321– 37.Google Scholar
Taylor A. D. 2004. Social Choice and the Mathematics of Manipulation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Forthcoming.
Tullock G. 1981. “Why So Much Stability.” Public Choice 37 (2): 189– 205.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.