Thursday, February 12, 2015

Equitable Representation in Councils: Theory and an Application to the United Nations Security Council



Matthew Gould and Matthew Rablen develop a theoretical framework for equity in council voting games (CVGs). In a CVG, a fully representative voting body delegates decision-making to a subset of the members, as describes, e.g., the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). A general framework for analysing country- and region-level equitability in councils is developed under alternate assumptions regarding preference correlation and differing ex-ante and ex-post notions of equity. Allowing for a ternary set of voting possibilities in the council, we use our framework to evaluate the equitability of the UNSC, and the claims of those who seek to reform it. 


available at http://wp.peio.me/wp-content/uploads/PEIO8/Gould,%20Rablen%2018.11.2014.pdf

Book: chapter 14