Game Theory and Democracy

Catalog description

What is democracy? When there are more than two options, this is an open question in the sense that philosophical notions of 'best' are not universally agreed upon. In this seminar, we will use mathematics and game theory to aid us in our discussion on the meaning of democracy and to examine the pros and cons of different approaches to this question. We will discuss preferential ballot elections (where each voter ranks all of the choices) and cover some of the most common vote counting methods used to determine a winner in a preferential ballot election. The seminar will also include an introduction to game theory, both for its own sake, as well as an essential tool for predicting how intelligent people with agendas behave given carefully defined rules.