Abstract
The aim of this paper is to clarify the continuing debate about the theoretical characteristics of vote trading. It sets about this by first emphasizing existing distinctions among types of vote trading systems, most importantly, the distinction between trades on entire platforms characterizing social states (implicit vote trading) and trades on the individual issues making up the platforms (explicit vote trading). The subdivisions of the latter type are more carefully explored, with the key results being that: while all vote trading systems may lead to circularity in the attempt to choose; and while implicit vote trading inevitably involves such circularity; vote trading over individual, independent issues may be stable. The challenge to the social choice field is therefore to be more careful in specifying the conditions of foresight, renegotiability and the like, and to compare theoretical systems for explicit vote trading with actual legislative rules.
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