MAJORITY RULE – A CAUSE OF WAR?

PETER EMERSON

THE DE BORDA INSTITUTE

www.deborda.org

ABSTRACT

Democracy is a given, and most accept that majority rule is a good thing. Paradoxical as it may sound, however, the instrument of majority rule should not be the majority vote, for the latter allows many practitioners, and not least the political ones, to reduce what might otherwise be a complex problem of social choice into a (supposedly) simple dichotomy. As a result, the question asked is invariably closed, and the subject under debate often distorted; furthermore, the resulting ballot paper does not reflect the full choice of options, and therefore the outcome of any vote is often inaccurate if not hopelessly misleading.

In conflict resolution work, in contrast, mediators rely on open questions. What’s more, the very process of mediation is designed to find, from a range of options, that which is most acceptable to all, i.e., the best possible compromise.

If ‘democracy’ is to be a vital part of our world, then, inter alia, the majority rule should be declared to be inadequate if, in its application, a) parliaments then divide into two and take decisions by majority vote; and/or worse, b) societies divide into two, either side of ethno-religious chasms.

________________________

ABBREVIATIONSAV = alternative vote ( = STV) BC = Borda countIOC = International Olympic Committee IRV = instant run-off ( = STV)MBC = modified Borda count SLM = Sudanese Liberation MovementSPLM = Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement STV = single transferable vote

UNESCO = UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation________________________

INTRODUCTION

Statements such as “Democracy rests upon the principles of majority rule,”1 “Democracy works on the basis of a decision

by the majority,”2 and “Democracy is based on majority decision.”3 are commonplace. In a word, the world – or at least the

Western world – appears to be committed to the majority vote.4

1

2

31 US Dept of State, http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/principles/what.htm

2 Report of the Constitution Review Group, Government of Ireland, 1996, p 398.

3 International UNESCO Education Server for Civic, Peace and Human Rights Education,

http://www.dadalos.org/int/Demokratie/Demokratie/Grundkurs5/mehrheitsprinzip.htm

4 And by ‘the world’ I mean not only the political sphere of media, academia and practitioner, but also the business community.

“The statutory contract succinctly lays down the basics of the legal relationship between the company, its members, and the members

inter se. In consequence, a member agrees to be bound by the decisions of the majority taken at a general meeting of the company. …just

like in a parliamentary democracy when the cabinet has taken a decision… a dissenting member will nevertheless be bound by it.”

An Examination Of Majority Rule Principle And The Remedies Available To Shareholders, Clement Chigbo.

http://www.jonesbahamas.com/?c=135&a=87934

i

Yet the 2,500-year-old majority vote is the most inaccurate measure of collective opinion ever invented! It is

admittedly a decision-making process and a voting procedure, appropriate for those occasions when there are only two

options or candidates, and so it too must be subjected to scientific analysis. In societies numbering more than two persons,

however, and most certainly in any democracy which aspires to the adjective plural, there are hardly any situations when the

question posed need be a dichotomy. Accordingly, in a plural democracy, the majority rule principle in its binary form

might almost have to be ruled irrelevant.5

There are, of course, the exceptions: some subjects can indeed be reduced to two options, and maybe a most

obvious example is the question: “Which side of the road shall we drive on?” Interestingly enough, however, the only

country ever to have held a referendum on this topic – Sweden, in 1955 – had three options on the ballot paper: left, right…

and blank. What’s more, 40,000 people put on their boots and trudged through the snows to support that third option.

Why? Well, maybe they thought we shouldn’t drive at all. Or maybe they thought that, while democracy is indeed an ideal

which they wished to support, on this particular topic they were indifferent. Who knows? Suffice to remember the old

saying – “There’s nought as queer as folks!” – and it ill behoves any politician (or anyone else for that matter) to decide,

like Orwellian thought police, that we should all have to think in terms of either/or, of either ‘this’ or ‘that’.

Accordingly, this paper will examine some of the dreadful consequences which have resulted from our Western, if

not now universal, obsession with majoritarianism; next, with particular reference to conflict resolution work, it will take a

look at what happens in so-called ethnic disputes; and finally, it will outline a more inclusive decision-making structure.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF BAD DECISION-MAKING

“All peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status…”6 But

people cannot “freely” determine anything if someone else has already reduced what should have been a multi-option

choice to a binary dilemma of just two options, (as we shall see in a moment on the questions of Olympic venues and the UK

poll tax). Unfortunately, none of the international declarations on self-determination stipulate the methodology by which a

people (whatever that is!) can actually determine their status. In the absence of such, most politicians have resorted to the

55 In its plural form – the Condorcet criterion – it is of course very relevant.

6 Article 1.1, The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted by the UN in 1996. This ‘right’ was first devised

by President Woodrow Wilson who, in his later years, reflected, “I never knew there were a million Germans in Bohemia.” Quoted in

Diplomacy for the Next Century, Abba Eban, Yale University Press, 1998, p 38.6

ii

binary majority vote, and not least because this allows them to control the agenda… i.e, to manipulate people. Which is

why many dictators, from Napoleon, Lenin and Hitler, to Saddam Hussein have used majority votes.

A simple example comes from Canada, when M. Parizeau decided that the people of Quebec should be presented

with the stark choice of either the status quo or independence, a question which easily ‘translated’ into the following: “Do

you speak English or Parlez-vous français?” Which did not say much for the indigenous Cree Indians, whom the question

all but disenfranchised. In the 1980 referendum, he lost by 59.6% to 40.4%. So he waited for a few years before having

another go: in 1992, there was a second defeat, this time by 56.7% to 43.3%. Accordingly, he chose to hang on for a little

longer, and then he held yet another ballot in 1995 – this referendum thing was rapidly becoming a “never-end-’em” – and

he now lost by a mere whisker, 50.6% to 49.4%. He blamed the Cree Indians, who had voted for the devil they knew, so the

other devil, Parizeau, had to resign.

In reality, then, at least as currently defined, the right of self-determination is a nonsense. It might have been

adequate for those who wished to break the chains of colonialism and apartheid. As a means of settling internal disputes,

however, it is a recipe for mayhem. Consider the following: if a minority does not want the status quo, and if a majority of

that minority choose to opt out, then of course they may. Because that is democracy. If, however, a minority of that

minority wishes to opt out of opting out, and if a majority of the minority of the minority so choose, then of course they

may. Because that is democracy. The logic of all this is as nonsensical as the consequences have been bloody: there will be

peace and tranquility on this planet, only when every pair of individuals is an independent nation-state of just 2 persons.

This whole dreadful business started in the UK. In 1920, Ireland opted out. So Northern Ireland opted out of

opting out, and opted back in again. The eventual consequence was violence, the thirty years of ‘the Troubles’.

The lessons, however, were unlearnt. When Mikhail Gorbachev introduced his policy of perestroika, the USSR

started to break up. Georgia, for example, opted out. Whereupon Abhazia and South Ossetia, and very nearly Ajaria as

well, opted out of Georgia. Hence more violence. Meanwhile, in today’s Russian Federation, the prospect of a similar

chain of events has come to be called ‘matrioshka nationalism’, named after the famous Russian dolls in which, lurking

inside every plural society is a minority; and within that, a smaller one; and in every smaller minority, a tiny one, and inside

that again, a miniscule one!7

77 The Shaman’s Coat, Anna Reid, Phoenix, 2002, p 136. When the first post-Soviet ethnic dispute broke out in 1988, in

Nagorno-Karabakh, the headline in Pravda the next morning was Наш Ольстер, ‘This is our Northern Ireland.’

iii

The nonsense hit hardest of all in the Balkans. In Yugoslavia in the 1990s, a major political question of the

moment was the dichotomy, “Are you Serb or Croat?” This closed question was of course ridiculous because, for many

people, it was unanswerable: the children of a mixed marriage; those who belonged to a different religious group; those who

like the Vlahs or the Roma were of an ethnic minority; and most tragically of all perhaps, those who were trying to move

beyond any sort of petty nationalism. Alas, as we all know, the binary question was put, in a referendum, not in Yugoslavia

as a whole, but just in Croatia. Well, turkeys don’t vote for Christmas, and minorities don’t vote at all. Instead, the

minority organised their own ballot, one week earlier, in the Krajina. In the latter poll, a turn-out of 95% voted by a 90%

margin to stay in Yugoslavia. The international community did not recognise it. One week later, in an 84% turnout, 93%

voted for Croatian independence. This result was recognized. The other consequence was war.8

Blindly, the international community blundered on; nobody paused to question this methodology of the majority

vote; and the final comment comes from Sarajevo’s now legendary newspaper, Oslobodjenje: “all the wars in the former

Yugoslavia started with a referendum.”9

Another consequence of the collapse of communism and the spread of western democracy was a series of wars in

the Caucasus. The referendums there were a little different from the Balkan equivalents in that they were retrospective. So

the minorities did not abstain; they were already exiled or dead. In Nagorno-Karabakh, on 10.12.91, i.e., after the war, a

majority of 99.89% voted for independence, and only 24 individuals bravely said ‘no’.

Abhazia and South Ossetia also voted. On 3.10.99 in Abhazia, in an 88% turnout, 97% supported independence;

and on 18.2.07, South Ossetia followed with a 99% margin.

8

98 The EU’s Badinter Commission had recommended the use of the referendum and, as a result, there was a whole spate of them:

votes in Slovenia (a poll which preceded the work of the commission), Bosnia and Macedonia were recognised; votes which did not

produce the required result, as in Montenegro, were repeated; and votes which were not wanted were just not recognised, votes in

Republika Srpska, Herzeg-Bosna, Sandžak, and Kosovo… unless or until, of course, we changed our minds. The 1991 poll in Kosovo

was not good enough, apparently: only 99% in favour. But in 1999, at Rambouillet, the international community decided that it would

now recognise a referendum in Kosova. Milošević refused to sign, (just as Koštunica and Tadić would have done). So NATO bombed.

And bombed. Until we tired. Eventually, Chernomyrdin went to Belgrade and he removed that referendum clause. Whereupon

Milošević did sign, and the war came to an end.

9 Op. cit., 7.2.1999. To be fair to Badinter, he did try to suggest that the outcome of the Bosnian referendum “would be valid

only if respectable numbers form all three communities of the republic approved”. Balkan Tragedy, Susan Woodward, Brookings

Institute, 1995, p 280. There again, the word ‘respectable’ he did not define. We blundered on. The referendum was called. The

Bosnian Serbs boycotted, and on the day of the vote, the barricades went up in Sarajevo. The Fall of Yugoslavia, Misha Glenny, Penguin,

1992, p 163.

iv

The tale is even more horrific in Africa. In the 1930s, the Belgian authorities issued everyone in Rwanda with an

ID card. The question was again closed: “Are you Hutu or Tutsi?” Now Rwandan society was quite unlike Kenya’s, for

example, where different tribal groups speak different languages. In Rwanda, in contrast, they live cheek by jowl, and

everyone speaks Kinyarwanda. But – divide and rule – the Belgians decided to split everyone into two, and thus they

converted a social distinction into a tribal one. Those who were tall were called Tutsi, the small were the Hutu, and anyone

who was just sort of average was asked a different question: “How many cows do you have?” If the answer was ten or

more, Tutsi; nine or less, Hutu.10

Having supported a form of minority rule – in which the tiniest minority, the colonialists, were on top – the

authorities then changed their minds, post WWII, and argued for majority rule. So the losers of yesterday could become the

winners of to-morrow. Little wonder, then, that when the Interahamwe launched their gruesome genocide in 1994, the

slogan they used was Rubanda Nyamwinshi, ‘the majority people’.11

In all the words which have been written on that tragedy, none have questioned the practice of turning the good

principle of majority rule into the bad practice of majority voting. Instead, as in the Balkans, so too in Africa, we blunder

on. In July 2002, British diplomats were present in Machakos when the two sides to the civil war in Sudan, the Khartoum

government and the SPLM,12 signed a Protocol to end that war. Inter alia, it promised a binary referendum in South Sudan

on whether or not the latter could have independence. Well, if one part of the country can secede by holding a referendum

and declaring independence, then why not another? Balkanisation. Therefore, needless to say, literally within a matter of

months, another ‘movement’ appeared on the scene, this one was the SLM,13 again with an army to match. Violence erupted.

The government responded with its now notorious Janjaweed. But the initial impetus for violence came from the above

peace agreement, the Machakos Protocol. In effect, the international community has now exported the so-called right of

self-determination and the practice of binary plebiscites to a continent of almost unlimited human diversity, Africa. Little

could be more unwise!

10

1110 Africa, John Reader, Penguin, 1998, p 616.

11 The Rwanda Crisis, History of a Genocide, Gérard Prunier, Hurst, 1995, p 183. In a brave attempt to overcome the legacy of

that genocide, the Rwandan government has initiated a series of ‘mini Truth and Reconciliation Commissions’ called gacacas. A

European company was asked to undertake a social survey on this question and, at a subsequent press conference in Kigali, it presented

its findings. In the questions which followed, one participant observed, “Asking yes-or-no questions is very unAfrican.”

12 Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement, with its military wing, the SPLA, (the SPL Army).

13 Sudanese Liberation Movement, with its wing, the SLA.12

13

v

My penultimate example of the bad application of a good principle concerns the UN Security Council vote on Iraq.

In Oct. 2002, remember, they voted on Resolution 1441, another closed question, for or against.14 France, for one, did not

like the draft on offer; in particular, she objected to the inclusion of the phrase, “serious consequences”. And yet she voted

in favour! Now why on earth would anyone vote for something they did not like? Well, in majority voting, we do it all the

time. We vote for ‘this’ either because we definitely support it or because we think, on balance, it is marginally better than

the alternative ‘that’. Or maybe, as in the case in point, we think of other considerations, like the need for international

solidarity, or some such.

Finally, may I recall Mrs. Thatcher’s poll tax. There were five options on the table: poll tax (Tory), property tax

(Labour), local income tax (Liberal), land tax (Green), and the status quo. But she was in charge, so she drew up the ballot

paper – poll tax versus status quo? – and the other options were just air-brushed out of existence. The result of the

subsequent vote, therefore, was pretty meaningless. If the same sort of thing had happened in the International Olympic

Committee, (IOC), someone surely would have shouted foul! There were, we recall, five venues short listed for the 2012

Olympics: London, Madrid, Moscow, New York and Paris. Well, if a Sovyetsky chairperson had asked, ‘Moscow, da ili

nyet?’ everyone would have known that the answer to such a question would also have been almost meaningless.15 Yet this

is what politicians in UN Security Councils and parliaments are constantly doing: reducing and manipulating multi-option

debates into two-option votes.

The conclusion is that, in any plural debate on any controversial subject, use of a two-option majority rule is

probably a distraction, at worst a dangerous distortion.16 The majority vote can be a cause of war. And for as long as

politics is majoritarian, we must indeed heed the words of Carl von Clausewitz: "It is of course well known that the only

1414 And all this in the wake of another rather silly closed question, George W Bush’s now infamous, “Are you with me or against

me?”

15 The Russian word for majoritarianism, by the way, is большевизм, ‘bolshevism’.15

16 One possible exception is a treaty ratification. When France held its referendum on the EU treaty, the people were asked did

they want it, “oui ou non?” So anyone who did not like the new treaty voted ‘non’; but so too did those who did not like the EU, or

Jacques Chirac, or Turkish accession, or MacDonalds, or je ne sais quoi, they all voted ‘non’! At the very least, the question should

have been as follows: the treaty à la d’Estaing or à la Maastricht, comme ci ou comme ça? It would have been even wiser, of course, to

hold a multi-option process, so that the people could have participated in drawing up a short list. As will be discussed later in this paper.

17 Carl von Clausewitz. http://www.clausewitz.com/CWZHOME/Quotations.html

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source of war is politics – the intercourse of governments and peoples. . . war is simply a continuation of political

intercourse, with the addition of other means.”17

Yet it need not be so. And it should not be so, for it is actually quite difficult to find two policies which are totally

mutually exclusive. Take, for example, the particular closed question which nearly led to the destruction of all life on this

planet: are you communist or capitalist? Both the US and the USSR were European in origin, both were huge nation-states if

not empires, both believed in all things ‘big’, and both communism and capitalism were motivated by selfishness: they were

creeds based on greed.18 Mutually exclusive? Hardly. The question, of course, was a (very dangerous) nonsense.

BAD ELECTIONS

Given the difficulty of finding truly mutually exclusive opposites in terms of options, many social choice theorists prefer to

analyse voting hypotheses in terms of elections. Mr. A is obviously different from Mr. B (let alone Ms. C), and if it comes

to making a choice between them, the two (or three) may indeed be assumed to be mutually exclusive. In these

circumstances, we use the “majority rule under its binary form (a is socially preferred to b if the number of voters who

prefer a to b is greater than the number of voters who prefer b to a).”19

Here, too, however, the situation is often ridiculous. In any two-party state, political opinion may well be divided

on a normal distribution curve. Some people are extreme left- or right-wing, or extreme Republican or Democrat; lots of

people are average supporters, again, with various levels of enthusiasm; and quite a few are actually situated on the peak of

the curve, somewhat torn between the two. And it is this group of people – middle America, or middle England, as they are

called – who on many occasions actually determine the outcome of a two-party election. Little wonder, then, that both

parties bend over backwards to woo this particular group of voters. And in (not all, but) some election campaigns, both

parties thus become very similar, tweedledum and tweedledee. In other words, the two-party system is actually a form of

one party state, (which is another similarity between communism and capitalism). Little wonder, then, that elections in the

UK and US often (though definitely not always) become little more than beauty contests: Tony Blair versus John Major was

a case in point. For the social choice scientist to pretend that these two candidates are mutually exclusive would be no less

silly than the Bolshevik suggestion that Trotsky was the opposite of Stalin.

17

18 A P Semenov-tian-Shanski, quoted in Models of Nature, Dougles Weiner, Indiana University, 1988, p 35.19 Maurice Salles, writing in Designing an All-Inclusive Democracy, Springer, 2007

vii

And yet, for some reason, elections are sometimes held between only two persons. Take, for example, the US, a

nation of 300 million people. In theory, any sane and sober adult could aspire to the presidency. By some extraordinary

process, they manage to reduce the choice from one of millions to an either/or, a short list of two.20 There is no logical

reason why it should be so: it could just as easily be a longer list of, say, ten.

There is also no earthly logic for supposing that any one election need be for just one post. If the Americans chose

to elect not only the president but also the vice president at the same time – as they used to, when certain democratic ideals

were more dearly held21 – a more inclusive polity would be possible. Alas, the adversarial interpretation of democracy –

‘winner-takes-all-and-loser-gets-nought’ – has come to be widespread, and a recent example of the chaos it can cause was

the December 2007 election in Kenya.

THE MATHEMATICS OF MAJORITY RULE

As authors like Robin Farquharson22 have pointed out, majority voting is indeed a nonsense. In any majority vote contest,

as we saw in the Balkans, there is no point in voting if you are a member of the minority, because you are bound to lose.

There is actually no point of voting if you are a member of the majority either, for with almost equal certainty, you are

bound to win. And there is definitely no point of voting if, for whatever reason, you are not a full and exclusive member of

the supposed minority or majority, perhaps because you belong to both, or maybe to neither.

2020 When American experts were trying to persuade Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev of the benefits of the two-party system, the

Soviet leader responded quizzically, “Today the republicans stand at the helm… tomorrow it will be the Democrats. There is no

particular difference.” Perestroika, Mikhail Gorbachev, Collins, 1987, p 216. And throughout the years of the Cold War, the difference

was indeed minimal. What’s more, the winner of nearly every US presidential election during this period was he who was the more anti-

Soviet: Kennedy and his ‘missile gap’, Reagan and his ‘empire of evil’. So democracy, so-called, democracy à la US, was actually a

cause of the arms race!

21 …while other ideals, of course, were ignored, not least that of universal franchise.

22 Theory of Voting, Robin Farquharson, New Haven, 1969.

23 “But as M. Calonne could not depend upon a majority of this Assembly in his favour, he very ingeniously arranged them in

such a manner as to make 44 a majority of 140: to effect this, he disposed of them into seven separate committees of 20 members each.

[Four committees of 11 of ‘his’ plus 9 opponents, and three committees of none of ‘his’ but full of 20 opponents.] Every general question

was to be decided, not by a majority of persons, but by a majority of committees; and as 11 votes would make a majority in a committee,

and 4 committees a majority of 7, M. Calonne had good reason to conclude… he could not be outvoted.” Rights of Man, Thomas Paine,

Penquin Classics, 1985, p 97. This tale comes from the not quite democratic goings-on in the not quite democratic Assembly of Notables

in France in the 1780s. 21

22

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But look at it another way. If voting is structured in a majoritarian way, a group of two people can actually veto a

society of a thousand. Or a million.23

TABLE I

A group of 2 may exercise a majority veto in a society of 3.that group of 3 may then exercise a majority veto in a society of 5;

– ’’ – 5 – ’’ – 9;– ’’ – 9 – ’’ – 17;– ’’ – 17 – ’’ – 33;– ’’ – 33 – ’’ – 65;– ’’ – 65 – ’’ – 129;– ’’ – 129 – ’’ – 257;– ’’ – 257 – ’’ – 513;

and that group of 513 – ’’ – 1025.

If we may return to the standard majoritarian interpretation of the right of self-determination, (although one or two places,

like Guam, have held multi-option plebiscites),24 the table can be reversed.

TABLE II

If a country wants to be inde-pendent, then, if

a majority of the whole votes in favour, it may.

UK Yugo-slavia

But if a minority wants to opt out, and if

a majority of that minority

– ” – Ireland Serbia

But if a minority of the minority

– ” – a majority of that minority of the minority

– ” – Northern Ireland

Kosova

But if a minority of the minority of the minority

– ” – a majority of that minority of the minority of the minority

– ” – West Belfast

NorthMitrovica

But if a minority of the minority of the minority of the minority

– ” – a majority of that minority of the minority of the minority of the minority

– ” –

But if …. – ” – …. – ” –But if 17 – ” – 9 – ” –But if 9 – ” – 5 – ” –But if 5 – ” – 3 – ” –But if 3 – ” – 2 – ” –

CONFLICT RESOLUTION

We quoted earlier “Democracy is based on majority decision.” That was bad enough, but UNESCO then went a little further:

“It is the most important instrument for finding peaceful solutions to conflicts.”25

23

24 In a two-round vote in 1982, Guam held a 6/7-option ballot, while Newfoundland, for example, held a 3-option poll in 1948.

2525 (See also fn 3.) International UNESCO Education Server for Civic, Peace and Human Rights Education

http://www.dadalos.org/int/Demokratie/Demokratie/Grundkurs5/mehrheitsprinzip.htm

ix

In conflict resolution work, instead of using closed questions (as in majority voting), the professional mediator

relies on a more open approach. Whether the dispute is domestic, industrial or political, she first asks all the parties for their

various options. Next, having perhaps added one or two of her own, she discusses the merits and demerits of all these ideas

in a process which is sometimes called shuttle diplomacy. Then, having drawn up a list of all the possible options, she asks

the various parties for their preferences, so to identify that option which has widest level of acceptance – i.e., the option with

the highest average preference. (And finally, she brings the various parties together for them to shake hands on the lawns of

the White House.)

If a negotiation relies on a majoritarian process, in contrast, then all the various participants might well keep their

cards fairly close to their chests. After all, “Once your fall-back positions are published, you have already fallen back to

them.”26 Let us now consider, therefore, that which might be a better decision-making methodology, one that could be used,

either as the norm in democratically elected parliaments, and/or in international negotiations, and/or in peace processes.

Happily, the choice of decision-making process is not binary.

TABLE III

CLOSED QUESTIONS OPEN QUESTIONS

THE

COUNT

Allprefs

Borda CountBC / MBC

Modified BCCondorcet

Count(Copeland)

Someprefs

Approval Voting

UN

AV, (STVor IRV)

‘SerialVoting’*Sweden

1st prefs only

WeightedMajority

SA

ConsociationalMajorityBelgium

‘2-roundVoting’*Norway

SimpleMajority

UK

TwinMajority

Switzerland

PluralityVoting

New Zealand

* = a series of closed questions

only 1 of 2options

only 1of many options

1 or some but not all the options

1 or some or even all the options

1st preferenceonly PREFERENTIAL

BINARY MULTI-OPTIONAL

V O T E R S ' C H O I C E

A MORE INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY

26 Diplomacy for the Next Century, Abba Eban, Yale University Press, 1998, p 81.

x

Of the above methodologies, nearly all are majoritarian. Democracy, however, is for everybody, not just a majority. Sadly,

there are those who conclude that, “Since unanimity is not always possible, the majority has to rule…”27 This, too, comes

from an obsession with majoritarianism, but while the first clause is indeed correct, the conclusion is way off the mark.

Decisions can be classified into three categories.

o those when people are indeed unanimous, but such times are rare.

o those when people come together for talks, often on an all-night basis, and where, albeit after a protracted

exchange of give-and-take, the outcome is a verbal consensus.28

o those when people come to a most acceptable compromise.

Now decisions can be reached, either by talking and talking, until an accommodation is found; or by talking and

then voting, so to identify that accommodation (and in theory, given that both claim the adjective ‘democratic’, the two

processes should produce pretty well the same outcome). So, in order to demonstrate how the decision-making process

should work, let us consider the non-majoritarian methodology, the MBC,29 in reference to the UN Security Council and the

debate on Iraq.30

Two of the fifteen members, the UK and the US, put forward their draft: let us call it option A. As noted above,

France, with Germany and Russia, did not like the expressions, “serious consequences”. Let them propose their motion,

with everything very similar to option A except for a re-wording of that particular clause; their version shall be option B.

Syria was one of the fifteen members of the Council, and given her insight to the Middle East, she might have had a further

27 The US Constitution… Joseph Barton Starr; Preview by Sang-Joon Kim, p 70. http://books.google.com/books?

id=gG_0CoxbWBEC&pg=PA69&lpg=PA69&dq=majority+rule+principle&source=web&ots=zIGVi8vFRt&sig=gU_pTqjB87Gfcn2jgD

oDRoO7Btc

2828 Whenever politicians cannot come to a verbal consensus in such a win-win procedure, however, they then do the very opposite:

no give-and-take at all, just a majority vote, the ultimate win-or-lose. What is even more surprising is that some observers actually take

the view that consensus is not democratic. “…many Asian societies stressed the … importance of consensus, the avoidance of

confrontation… These attitudes contrasted with the primacy in American beliefs of… democracy…” The Clash of Civilisations, Samuel

P Huntington, Touchstone Books, 1996, p 225.

29 The Modified Borda Count is one of the few voting procedures which lays down rules, not only for the vote and the count, but

also for the debate which precedes this denouement. After all, much depends upon the choice of options!

30 A similar procedure could also be used in constitutional commissions established to draw up a short list of possible

constitutions.29

30

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variation: option C. Ireland proclaims a policy of neutrality, and might well have offered option D. In all, let us assume

that there are five options ‘on the table’: options A, B, C, D and E.

In the debate which follows, members can ask questions, seek clarifications and propose amendments. Indeed, as a

result of the dialogue (or ‘polylogue’), another member might actually propose a new option. A further possibility is that all

concerned may come to the view that one of the options on the table (and computer screen) is no longer necessary. So, as

the debate proceeds, the list changes. For this reason, the process must be administered by a team of independent

consensors, whose task is to compile and then maintain a list of all the options, a balanced list which fairly represents the

entire debate.

If, when the talking is at an end, there is only one option left, that option may be regarded as the verbal consensus.

If, however, a number of options remain, the chair may call a vote. She first asks all the members to confirm that they are

satisfied that their particular option is included on the list, either verbatim or in composite. If that is so, the consensors’ list

becomes the ballot paper, and she then asks all concerned to proceed to the MBC vote.31

Let us assume that there are indeed five options, and that all fifteen members cast all five preferences. Now in

theory, if one option, let us say C, receives the 1st preferences of everybody, then it will get the highest possible average

preference score of 1. If another option, E, gets fifteen 5th preferences, then it will get the lowest possible average

preference score of 5. Meanwhile, if option D gets fifteen 3rd preferences, then it will get an average preference score of 3,

which is of course the mean.

In real life, something(s) will always be above the mean, and something(s) else below. The MBC always gives an

answer. If the outcome gets a very high average preference score, between 1 and 1.5, then we may speak in terms of

unanimity. If the top score is from 1.5 – 2, we may refer to the common consensus. If it is only between 2 and 2.5, a better

3131 In the MBC, those who cast their preferences for all n options shall effect

n, n-1 … 2, 1 points

while those who vote for only m options shall effect

m, m-1 … 2, 1 points.

Thus she who votes for only 1 option gives her favourite option only 1 point; while he who votes for 2 options gives his favourite 2 points

and his second choice 1 point; whereas she who casts preferences for all n options gives her favourite option n points, her second choice

n-1 points, and so on. No matter what, every voter who participates either fully or partially always gives his favourite option 1 more point

than he gives his next preference, whether or not that next preference is stated. The difference is always 1 point; there is no especial

weighting.

In more general terms, it reads as follows: the voter gives his/her xth preference, if expressed, 1 more point than his/her (x+1)th preference,

whether or not he/she has expressed that next (x+1)th preference.

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description would be the best possible compromise. And if it is any lower, of the order of 2.9, then obviously all the other

options are of the same order, in which case it would be wiser for the chair to resume the debate.

The outcome of an MBC is indeed an accurate measure of the voters’ collective will. Furthermore, in plural

societies, it is perfectly easy to lay down a minimum level of consensus in order to ensure that the policy concerned enjoys a

degree of cross community support. In South Africa, the term used was “sufficient consensus”, but it was never defined in

any mathematical sense.32 In Northern Ireland, the Belfast Agreement refers to ‘key’ decisions, again with little precision.33

While Bosnia’s Dayton Agreement is still very majoritarian as well, and its safeguards lie in a three-sided veto.

It would be much wiser to agree that, in order to be enacted, a policy should first enjoy a minimum consensus

coefficient of, say, 0.6 or 0.67 or whatever. If SA is the MBC score of option A, if V is the valid vote, and if n is the number

of options on the ballot paper, the consensus coefficient of option A, which is CA, is defined as: SA / V.n

CONCLUSIONS

A voting procedure is inadequate if the choice of options/candidates has been excessively restricted.

Both the BC and the MBC are subject to the well known weaknesses of the irrelevant alternative. If, however, the

consensors have done their job properly, there will definitely be no clones, and at the very least there will be no verbal

irrelevancies. It is nevertheless advisable, especially on important and/or very contentious matters, to undertake two counts:

one by the MBC, and a second count by Condorcet.34 If both counts give the same winner, then that most popular option can

indeed be said to represent the collective will.

32 Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela, Abacus, 1994, p 714. 33 In the Belfast Talks, however, this ‘triple-lock mechanism’ was defined as ‘the support of parties representing a majority of the

total valid poll, a majority of both communities as represented by the parties in the negotiations and, thirdly, a majority of the parties

involved in the talks.’ The Far Side of Revenge, Deaglán de Bréadún, (Collins, 2008), p 28.34

34 The Condorcet count must also be able to cater for partial voting. Accordingly, the Copeland rule has been adjusted as follows:

an option which wins a pairing gets 1 point; an option which enjoys equal positive support in a pairing gets ½ point; when an option

which enjoys no support is paired with another option which also has no support, then both get 0 points; and an option which loses a

pairing also gets 0 points.

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