Understanding Collective Decision Making

One of the main challenges facing contemporary society is to understand how people can make decisions together. Understanding Collective Decision Making builds on evolutionary theories and presents an analytical tool to analyse and visualise collective decision making. By combining theoretical research with real world case studies, the authors provide a coherent and conclusive solution to the often fragmented and dispersed literature on the subject.

In The Origins of Collective Decision Making, Andy Blunden identifies three paradigms of collective decision making – Counsel, Majority and Consensus, discovers their origins in traditional, medieval and modern times, and traces their evolution over centuries up to the present. The study reveals that these three paradigms have an ethical foundation, deeply rooted in historical experiences. The narrative takes the reader into the very moments when individual leaders and organisers made the crucial developments in white heat of critical moments in history, such as the English Revolution of the 1640s, the Chartist Movement of the 1840s and the early Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. This history provides a valuable resource for resolving current social movement conflict over decision making.

"This book focuses on how groups can structure their activities toward making better decisions or in developing technologies for the support of decision-making in groups"--Provided by publisher.

This book presents research on recent developments in collective decision-making. With contributions from leading scholars from a variety of disciplines, it provides an up-to-date overview of applications in social choice theory, welfare economics, and industrial organization. The contributions address, amongst others, topics such as measuring power, the manipulability of collective decisions, and experimental approaches. Applications range from analysis of the complicated institutional rules of the European Union to responsibility-based allocation of cartel damages or the design of webpage rankings. With its interdisciplinary focus, the book seeks to bridge the gap between different disciplinary approaches by pointing to open questions that can only be resolved through collaborative efforts.

This book provides an economic approach to the study of collective decision making. In Social Choice theory, the main problem of collective decision making is normally conceived of as one of aggregating diverse individual preferences. However, in practice, objectives are often common to the individuals - whether, for instance, in the firm, or where a medical diagnosis is required - but the information available to each individual, and their ability to utilise that information optimally, differ. The authors therefore deal with a different problem of decisional skills aggregation assuming homogeneous preferences but differing decisional skills, and develop a framework for the study of collective decision making. They examine the effect of the size of the decision making body; incomplete information on decisional skills; interdependence among decisions; shadow prices of decision rules; and of decision making costs and benefits on optimal group decision making. The model is then illustrated in a range of different fields, including industrial organisation, labour economics and in the design of consulting schemes, medical diagnostic systems, and corporate law.

In the last decade the techniques of social choice theory, game theory and positive political theory have been combined in interesting ways so as to pro vide a common framework for analyzing the behavior of a developed political economy. Social choice theory itself grew out of the innovative attempts by Ken neth Arrow (1951) and Duncan Black (1948, 1958) to extend the range of economic theory in order to deal with collective decision-making over public goods. Later work, by William Baumol (1952), and James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock (1962), focussed on providing an "economic" interpretation of democratic institutions. In the same period Anthony Downs (1957) sought to model representative democracy and elections while William Riker (1962) made use of work in cooperative game theory (by John von Neumann and Oscar Morgenstern, 1944) to study coalition behavior. In my view, these "rational choice" analyses of collective decision-making have their antecedents in the arguments of Adam Smith (1759, 1776), James Madison (1787) and the Marquis de Condorcet (1785) about the "design" of political institutions. In the introductory chapter to this volume I briefly describe how some of the current normative and positive aspects of social choice date back to these earlier writers.

Group Decision Making is essential in Political Science, offering insights into the collective choices that shape governance and policy outcomes. This book is perfect for professionals, students, and enthusiasts looking to deepen their understanding of political processes and improve decision-making skills. Chapter 1: Group Decision-Making - Explores the principles and processes involved in making decisions as a group. Chapter 2: Cognitive Bias - Examines various cognitive biases and their impact on group decisions. Chapter 3: Heuristic - Highlights the efficiency and pitfalls of mental shortcuts in political contexts. Chapter 4: Cognitive Dissonance - Discusses the discomfort from conflicting beliefs and its effects on group choices. Chapter 5: Decision-Making - Provides an overview of the decision-making process and strategies for consensus. Chapter 6: Hindsight Bias - Explores the tendency to see events as predictable after they occur. Chapter 7: List of Cognitive Biases - A reference guide to biases affecting group decisions. Chapter 8: Attribution Bias - Investigates how groups misjudge causes of behaviors and events. Chapter 9: False Consensus Effect - Examines the overestimation of agreement within groups. Chapter 10: Anchoring (Cognitive Bias) - Discusses how initial information influences group decisions. Chapter 11: Political Psychology - Connects psychological principles to political behaviors. Chapter 12: Emotional Reasoning - Highlights the role of emotions in decision-making. Chapter 13: The Wisdom of Crowds - Explores when group decisions are accurate. Chapter 14: Dual Process Theory - Balances intuitive and analytical approaches in group settings. Chapter 15: Selective Exposure Theory - Examines the preference for information that aligns with existing beliefs. Chapter 16: Wisdom of the Crowd - Looks deeper into collective intelligence. Chapter 17: Motivated Tactician - Discusses selective cognitive strategies in group decisions. Chapter 18: Heuristic (Psychology) - Revisits heuristics from a psychological perspective. Chapter 19: Shared Information Bias - Explores the focus on shared information over unique insights. Chapter 20: Cognitive Bias Mitigation - Strategies for reducing cognitive biases in group decisions. Chapter 21: Social Heuristics - Examines heuristics in social interactions affecting group dynamics. This book provides valuable insights and practical strategies, making it an essential resource for enhancing understanding and effectiveness in collective political processes.

First Published in 2011.This is Volume 11 of fourteen in the library collection of Policy and Government and looks at the applications from public choice theory on decision making. It brings together proceedings that look seek to answer the question for the forum, which was whether public choice theory offers promise of providing a firmer foundation for applied institutional research and for institutional innovations which could contribute to the solution of some of these problems.

The idea for this volume took root during a recent annual convention of the American Psychological Association. The contributors share a common vision of research in their particular area and have had an opportunity to debate and clarify their ideas. Taken as a whole, the fifteen chapters provide an exciting perspective of the field and form a basic set of readings for courses on individual and group decision making in a variety of disciplines. The coverage from basic laboratory research to complex applied group decision processes should challenge researchers and students to pursue the field of decision making as enthusiastic scientists and practitioners.

Harrie de Swart is a Dutch logician and mathematician with a great and open int- est in applications of logic. After being confronted with Arrow’s Theorem, Harrie became very interested in social choice theory. In 1986 he took the initiative to start up a group of Dutch scientists for the study of social choice theory. This initiative grew out to a research group and a series of colloquia, which were held approximately every month at the University of Tilburg in The Netherlands. The organization of the colloquia was in the hands of Harrie and under his guidance they became more and more internationally known. Many international scholars liked visiting the social choice colloquia in Tilburg and enjoyed giving one or more presentations about their work. They liked Harrie’s kindness and hospitality, and the openness of the group for anything and everything in the eld of social choice. The Social Choice Theory Group started up by Harrie consisted, and still c- sists, of scholars from several disciplines; mostly economics, mathematics, and (mathematical) psychology. It was set up for the study of and discussion about anything that had to do with social choice theory including, and not in the least, the supervision of PhD students in the theory. Members of the group were, among o- ers, Thom Bezembinder (psychologist), Hans Peters (mathematician), Pieter Ruys (economist), Stef Tijs (mathematician and game theorist) and, of course, Harrie de Swart (logician and mathematician).