Another characterization of the majority rule

Abstract

Given any (finite) society confronting two alternatives, May [Econometrica 20 (1995) 680] characterizes the majority rule in terms of anonymity, neutrality and positive responsiveness. This final condition is usually criticized to be too strong. Thus, we drop it and give a similar characterization in terms of anonymity, neutrality, Pareto optimality and a condition we call weak path independence. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.