According to Kenneth J. Arrow, what are the three conditions that any reasonable voting scheme should satisfy? What does Arrow's Impossibility Theorem state?
What will be an ideal response?
Kenneth J. Arrow argued that any reasonable voting scheme should satisfy the following conditions:
• Unanimity: If there is a vote between two options, 1 and 2, and all voters prefer 1 to 2, then 1 should be selected.
• Transitivity: Transitivity of preferences would imply that if an individual prefers option 1 to option 2 and option 2 to option 3, then she prefers option 1 to option 3.
• Independence of irrelevant alternatives: If there is a vote between options 1 and 2, then the preferences of voters concerning the comparison of one of these against some third option, say option 3, should have no bearing on the outcome of the vote.
Arrow also noted that another desirable property is that a voting scheme should not be dictatorial, meaning that there should not exist a single individual whose preferences always prevail regardless of the preferences of everybody else.
Arrow's Impossibility Theorem suggests that we cannot find a voting scheme that satisfies unanimity, transitivity, and independence of irrelevant alternatives as well asthe additional requirement that there should be no dictators.
A-head: CONFLICT OF INTEREST AND POLITICAL ECONOMY
Concept:Arrow's Impossibility Theorem
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