We analyze 36 elections held by professional associations, unions, and non-profit organizations in England and Ireland. We show that these elections manifest a remarkably high degree of transitivity, with a Condorcet (majority) winner always found. Moreover, ordering alternatives according to their Borda score provides a transitive majority ordering in nearly all instances.
Arrow, Kenneth
(1963) Social Choice and Individual Values. New York: Wiley.
2.
Chamberlin, J. R.
and M. M. Cohen (1978) `Toward Applicable Social Choice Theory - A Comparison of Social Choice Functions Under Spatial Model Assumptions', American Political Science Review72(4): 1341-1356.
3.
Coombs, Clyde H.
, Jerry L. Cohen and Jon R. Chamberlin (1984) `An Empirical Study of Some Election Systems', American Psychologist39(2): 140-157.
4.
Doron, Gideon
and R. Kronick (1977) `Single Transferable Vote: An Example of Perverse Social Choice Function', American Journal of Political Science21: 303-311.
5.
Feld, Scott L.
and Bernard Grofman (1986a) `On the Possibility of Faithfully Representative Committees', American Political Science Review80(3): 863-879.
6.
Feld, Scott L.
and Bernard Grofman (1986b) `Partial Single-Peakedness: An Extension and Clarification', Public Choice51-51.
7.
Feld, Scott L.
and Bernard Grofman (1988a) `Ideological Consistency as a Collective Phenomenon', American Political Science Review82(3): 64-75.
8.
Feld, Scott L.
and Bernard Grofman (1988b) `The Borda Count in N-Dimensional Issue Space', Public Choice167-176.
9.
Feldman, Allan
(1985) Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory. Boston: Martinus Nijhoff.
10.
Grofman, Bernard (1981) `Research Note: Is the Condorcet Winner the Condorcet Winner?', unpublished manuscript.
11.
Grofman, Bernard
and Scott L. Feld (1988) `Rousseau's General Will: A Condorcetian Perspective', American Political Science Review82(2): 567-576.
12.
Grofman, Bernard
, Guillermo Owen and Scott L. Feld (1983) `Thirteen Theorems in Search of the Truth', Theory and Decision15: 261-278.
13.
Inglehart, Ronald
(1985) `Aggregate Stability and Individual Level Flux in Mass Belief Systems: The Level of Analysis Paradox', The American Political Science Review79(1): 97-117.
14.
Lakeman, Enid
(1982) Power to Elect: The Case for Proportional Representation. New York: Holmes and Meier.
15.
Lijphart, Arend
and Bernard Grofman, eds (1984) Choosing an Electoral System. New York: Praeger.
16.
Niemi, Richard G.
and Herbert F. Weisberg (1974) `Single Peakedness and Guttman Scales: Concept and Measurement', Public Choice20 (Winter): 33-45.
17.
Niemi, Richard G.
and John R. Wright (1986) `Voting Cycles and the Structure of Individual Preferences', presented at the Annual Meeting of the Public Choice Society, 1986, Baltimore, MD.
18.
Plott, Charles R.
(1976) `Axiomatic Social Choice Theory: An Overview and Interpretation', American Journal of Political Science20 (August): 146-160.
19.
Riker, William H.
(1982) Liberalism v. Populism. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.
20.
Shaw, Marvin
(1971) Group Dynamics. New York: McGraw-Hill.
21.
Stinchcombe, Arthur
(1968) Stratification and Organizations. New York: Cambridge University Press.
22.
Tullock, Gordon
(1970) Toward a Mathematics of Politics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
23.
Tullock, Gordon
(1981) `Why So Much Stability?', Public Choice37: 189-205.
