Proportional representation within the limits of liberalism alone

van der Hout, Eliora and McGann, Anthony J. (2009) Proportional representation within the limits of liberalism alone. British Journal of Political Science, 39 (4). pp. 735-754. ISSN 0007-1234

Abstract

This article provides a justification of proportional representation (PR) in strictly liberal terms. Previous justifications of proportional representation have tended to be based either on its intuitive fairness to political parties, or on its being fair to social groups. The arguments of critics of PR, we argue, likewise rely on fairness to group identities. In contrast, our result shows that proportionality is logically implied by liberal equality, that is, by the requirement that all individual voters be treated equally. Thus we provide a justification for PR in terms of the theory of voting, similar to May's theorem for majority rule.

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  Item type:	Article
  ID code:	44504
  Dates:	Date Event October 2009 Published 15 May 2009 Published Online
  Keywords:	proportional representation, PR, majority rule, Political Science, Sociology and Political Science
  Subjects:	Political Science
  Department:	Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS) > School of Government and Public Policy > Politics
  Depositing user:	Pure Administrator
  Date deposited:	16 Aug 2013 15:39
  Last modified:	20 Jan 2021 20:47
  URI:	https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/44504