Equitable representation in councils: theory and an application to the United Nations Security Council

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• 作者：Matthew Gould ; Matthew D. Rablen
• 关键词：United Nations Security Council ; United Nations ; Voting power ; Square ; root rule ; Equity
• 刊名：Public Choice
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：October 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：169
• 期：1-2
• 页码：19-51
• 全文大小：546 KB
• 刊物类别：Business and Economics
• 刊物主题：Economics
  Public Finance and Economics
  Political Science
  
• 出版者：Springer Netherlands
• ISSN：1573-7101
• 卷排序：169

文摘

We analyze democratic equity in council voting games (CVGs). In a CVG, a voting body containing all members delegates decision-making to a (time-varying) subset of its members, as describes, e.g., the relationship between the United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). We develop a theoretical framework for analyzing democratic equitability in CVGs at both the country and region levels, and for different assumptions regarding preference correlation. We apply the framework to evaluate the equitability of the UNSC, and the claims of those who seek to reform it. We find that the individual permanent members are overrepresented by between 21.3 times (United Kingdom) and 3.8 times (China) from a country-level perspective, while from a region perspective Eastern Europe is the most heavily overrepresented region with more than twice its equitable representation, and Africa the most heavily underrepresented. Our equity measures do not preclude some UNSC members from exercising veto rights, however.