Majority rule
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Majority rule is a decision rule that selects alternatives which have a majority, that is, more than half the votes. It is the binary decision rule used most often in influential decision-making bodies, including the legislatures of democratic nations. Some scholars have recommended against the use of majority rule, at least under certain circumstances, due to an ostensible trade-off between the benefits of majority rule and other values important to a democratic society. Most famously, it has been argued that majority rule might lead to a "tyranny of the majority," so the use of supermajoritarian rules and constitutional limits on government power has been recommended to mitigate these effects. Recently some voting theorists have argued that majority rule is the rule that best protects minorities.
See also
- Appeal to the majority
- Arrow's theorem
- Condorcet's jury theorem
- Majority criterion
- Majority loser criterion
- Mutual majority criterion
- No independence before majority rule (NIBMAR)
- Ochlocracy
- Voting system criterion
- Voting system
