1st Edition

Institutional Design and Voting Power in the European Union

Edited By Marek A. Cichocki, Karol Zyczkowski Copyright 2011

    Leading global experts in the field of politics and mathematics bring forth key insights on how voting power should be allocated between EU member states, and what the policy consequences are of any given institutional design. Close attention is paid to the practical implications of decision-making rules, the nature and distribution of power, and the most equitable ways to represent the preoccupations of European citizens both in the Council and European Parliament. Highly theoretical and methodologically advanced, this volume is set to enrich the debate on the future of the EU's institutional design. A valuable source of information to scholars of political science, European studies and law, as well as to people working on game theory, theory of voting and, in general, applications of mathematics to social science.

    Introduction; I: Voting System for the Council of European Union; 1: Is the Double Majority Really Double? The Voting Rules in the Lisbon Treaty 1; 2: Penrose's Square-Root Rule and the EU Council of Ministers; 3: Jagiellonian Compromise – An Alternative Voting System for the Council of the European Union; 4: The Double Majority Voting Rule of the EU Reform Treaty as a Democratic Ideal for an Enlarging Union; 5: The Blocking Power in Voting Systems; 6: The Distribution of Power in the Council of Ministers of the European Union; II: Distribution of Power in the European Union; 7: The Distribution of Power in the European Cluster Game; 8: The Constitutional Power of Voters in the European Parliament; 9: Decision Rules and Intergovernmentalism in the European Union; 10: On the Relative Unimportance of Voting Weights; 11: Patterns of Voting in the Council of Ministers of the European Union; 12: Decision-Making in the EU Council after the First Eastern Enlargement; III: Allocation of Seats in the European Parliament; 13: Degressive Proportionality; 14: Putting Citizens First; 15: Comparative Analysis of Several Methods for Determining the Composition of the European Parliament; 16: On Bounds for Allocation of Seats in the European Parliament; 17: Conclusions

    Biography

    Marek A. Cichocki, Programme Director, Natolin European Centre, Institute of Applied Social Sciences, University of Warsaw, Poland and Karol Zyczkowski, Professor, Jagiellonian University, Poland

    'Making informed choices in politics is very important. This book offers a common sense approach towards decision making in the EU based on clear scientific reasoning. I hope that it might become of interest for decision-makers.' Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, former Polish Minister for European Affairs, Member of the European Parliament