Journal of Social and Political
Sciences
ISSN 2615-3718 (Online)
ISSN 2621-5675 (Print)
Published: 12 April 2024
Politics, its Science, and the Prevention of Wars
Peter Emerson
The de Borda Institute, Northern Ireland
Download Full-Text Pdf
10.31014/aior.1991.07.02.483
Pages: 1-15
Keywords: All-Party Power-Sharing, Consensus, Modified Borda Count MBC, Preferential Decision-Making
Abstract
Majority voting and majority rule – in a word, majoritarianism – have been a cause of division in both parliamentary votes and binary referendums, and sometimes, subsequently, in societies as well. Indeed, at worst, such binary decisions have led to violence and war. Other, more inclusive voting procedures have been developed over the years, as often as not first used in Asia, and their adoption worldwide could lead to decisions, which more accurately reflect the common good. Furthermore, if decisions were based on a methodology which identified, not the more popular of just two options, but the most popular of a few – the option with the highest average preference – governance by a single party or a majority coalition could give way to that which is advocated for conflict zones: all-party power-sharing. Indeed, if such were the norm, consensus in international gatherings could more effectively be achieved, and maybe many violent conflicts could be at best prevented and at least resolved peacefully.
References
Arrow, K. 1963, Social Choice and Individual Values, Yale University Press, New Haven and London.
Black, D. 1958, The Theory of Committees and Elections, Kluwer Academic Publications, Boston.
Chang, J. and Halliday, J. 2006, Mao, the Unknown Story, Vintage Books, London.
de Ste Croix, G.E.M. 2004, Athenian Democratic Origins, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Dikötter, F. 2011, Mao’s Great Famine, Bloomsbury Publishing, London.
Dikötter, F. 2017, The Tragedy of Liberation, Bloomsbury Publishing, London.
Dummett, M. 1997, Principles of Electoral Reform, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Emerson, P. 2012, Defining Democracy, Springer, Heidelberg.
1963; 2022, The Punters’ Guide to Democracy, Springer, Heidelberg.
Franke, H. and Twitchett, D. 1994, Cambridge History of China, Vol 6, Cambridge University Press.
Glenny, M. 1996, The Fall of Yugoslavia, Penguin, London.
Juche. 2017, The Socialist Constitution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Pyongyang.
Lijphart, A. 2012, Patterns of Democracy, Yale University Press, New Haven and London.
McLean, I. and Urken, A.B. 1995, Classics of Social Choice, The University of Michigan Press, Michigan.
Prunier, G. 1995, The Rwanda Crisis, C. Hurst and Co., London.
Reader, J. 1998, Africa, Penguin, London.
Riker, W.H. 1988, Liberalism against Populism, Waveland Press Inc., Illinois.
Schram, S.R. 1969, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung, Frederick A Praeger, New York.
Sigmund, P.E. 1963, Nicholas of Cusa and Medieval Political Thought, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Su, Y. 2011, Collective Killings in Rural China during the Cultural Revolution,Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Wang, Y-C. 1968, An outline of the Central Government of the Former Han Dynasty. In Bishop, J. L., (Ed), Studies of Government Institutions in Chinese History. Harvard-Yenching Institute Studies XXIII. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Woodward, S. 1995, Balkan Tragedy, Brookings Institution, Washington.
Yang, J. 2008, Tombstone, Allen Lane, London.