Editing Majority rule (section)

== Limitations ==

=== Arguments for limitations ===

==== Minority rights ====

A super-majority rule actually empowers the minority, making it stronger (at least through its veto) than the majority. McGann argued that when only one of multiple minorities is protected by the super-majority rule (same as seen in simple plurality elections systems), so the protection is for the status quo, rather than for the faction that supports it.

Another possible way to prevent tyranny is to elevate certain rights as [[Natural rights and legal rights|inalienable]].<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EMB-F6Forx8C&pg=PA223 |page=223 |title=Democracy and the Rule of Law |isbn=9780521532662 |last1=Przeworski |first1=Adam |last2=Maravall |first2=José María |date=2003-07-21 |publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref> Thereafter, any decision that targets such a right might be [[majoritarian]], but it would not be legitimate, because it would violate the requirement for [[civil rights|equal rights]]. 
<!--Erroneous priorities

The erroneous priorities effect (EPE) states that groups that act upon what they initially consider important almost always misplace their effort. Such groups have not yet determined which factors are most influential. Only after identifying those factors can they take effective action. EPE was articulated by K.M. Dye at the [[Food and Drug Administration]].<ref>Dye, K.M. and Conaway, D.S. (1999) 'Lessons learned from five years of application of the cogniscope', Approach to the Food and Drug Administration, CWA Report, Interactive Management Consultants, Paoli.</ref><ref name="collective wisdom">{{cite book |last=Dye |first=K. |title=How People Harness their Collective Wisdom and Power |publisher=Information Age Pub. |year=1999 |isbn=9781593114824 |editor-last=Christakis |editor-first=A.N. |pages=166–169 |chapter=Dye's law of requisite evolution of observations |editor-last2=Bausch |editor-first2=K. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k3vvYZLBhS8C}}</ref> This discovery led to the recognition that even with good intentions, effective action requires a different paradigm for language and voting.<ref>Flanagan, T.R., and Christakis, A.N. (2010) The Talking Point: Creating an Environment for ExploringComplex Meaning, Information Age Publishing, Greenwich, CT.</ref> EPE is a negative consequence of phenomena such as [[spreadthink]] and [[groupthink]]. Effective priorities are dependent on recognizing the influence patterns of global interdependencies and are defeated by EPE when priorities simply aggregate individual stakeholder's subjective voting that does not consider those interdependencies. Dye's work resulted in the discovery of the 6th law of the science of structured dialogic design, namely that "Learning occurs in a dialogue as the observers search for influence relationships among the members of a set of observations."<ref name="collective wisdom" />-->

==== Instability ====

Some [[Social choice theorist|social choice theorists]] have argued [[Cyclic tie|cycling]] leads to debilitating instability.<ref name="Tyranny"/> [[James M. Buchanan|Buchanan]] and [[Gordon Tullock|Tullock]] note that [[unanimity]] is the only decision rule that guarantees [[Pareto efficiency|economic efficiency]] and eliminates the possibility of cycling in all cases.<ref name="Tyranny" />

=== Arguments against limitations ===

==== Minority rights ====

McGann argued that majority rule helps to protect [[minority rights]], at least in deliberative settings. The argument is that cycling ensures that parties that lose to a majority have an interest to remain part of the group's process, because any decision can easily be overturned by another majority. Furthermore, suppose a minority wishes to overturn a decision. In that case, under majority rule it just needs to form a coalition that has more than half of the officials involved and that will give it power. Under supermajority rules, a minority needs its own supermajority to overturn a decision.<ref name="Tyranny" />

To support the view that majority rule protects minority rights better than supermajority rules, McGann pointed to the cloture rule in the US Senate, which was used to prevent the extension of [[civil liberties]] to racial minorities.<ref name="Tyranny" /> Saunders, while agreeing that majority rule may offer better protection than supermajority rules, argued that majority rule may nonetheless be of little help to the least minorities.<ref name="Saunders">{{cite web | url = https://oxford.academia.edu/documents/BenSaunders_SubmittedThesis.pdf | title = Democracy-as-Fairness: Justice, Equal Chances, and Lotteries | access-date = September 8, 2013 | author = Ben Saunders | year = 2008 |archive-date=September 10, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080910032028/http://oxford.academia.edu/documents/BenSaunders_SubmittedThesis.pdf }}</ref>

Under some circumstances, the legal rights of one person cannot be guaranteed without unjustly imposing on someone else. McGann wrote, "one man's right to property in the antebellum South was another man's slavery."{{Cn|date=September 2024}} 

[[Amartya Sen]] has noted the existence of the [[liberal paradox]], which shows that permitting assigning a very small number of rights to individuals may make everyone worse off.<ref name="Logic">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iv1sTJtPEp8C |title = The Logic of Democracy: Reconciling Equality, Deliberation, and Minority Protection|isbn = 0472069497|last1 = McGann|first1 = Anthony J.|year = 2006| publisher=University of Michigan Press }}</ref>

==== Other arguments ====
Saunders argued that [[deliberative democracy]] flourishes under majority rule and that under majority rule, participants always have to convince more than half the group, while under [[Supermajority|supermajoritarian]] rules participants might only need to persuade a minority (to prevent a change).<ref name="Saunders" /> 

Where large changes in seats held by a party may arise from only relatively slight change in votes cast (such as under FPTP), and a simple majority is all that is required to wield power (most legislatures in democratic countries), governments may repeatedly fall into and out of power. This may cause polarization and policy lurch, or it may encourage compromise, depending on other aspects of political culture. McGann argued that such cycling encourages participants to compromise, rather than pass resolutions that have the bare minimum required to "win" because of the likelihood that they would soon be reversed.<ref name="Logic" />

Within this atmosphere of compromise, a minority faction may accept proposals that it dislikes in order to build a coalition for a proposal that it deems of greater moment. In that way, majority rule differentiates weak and strong preferences. McGann argued that such situations encourage minorities to participate, because majority rule does not typically create permanent losers, encouraging systemic stability. He pointed to governments that use largely unchecked majority rule, such as is seen under [[proportional representation]] in the [[Netherlands]], [[Austria]], and [[Sweden]], as empirical evidence of majority rule's stability.<ref name="Tyranny" />