Relevance of Voting Power

Abstract

Democratic decision-making in groups requires institutions that aggregate the preference of the choice participants into a collective choice under the restriction that no player is a dictator. Constitutions deliver alternative rules for democratic decision-making, the consequences of which are best analysed using cooperative game theory. The emergence of a power index literature in the 1980s reflects the relevance of this type of modelling of institutions for groups like the European Union, stating modalities of power for the players.