Measuring Voting Power: The Paradox of New Members vs. the Null Player Axiom

2016

SSRN Journal

The possible exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union will have profound economic and political effects. Here we look at a particular aspect, the power distribution in the Council of the European Union. Since the Lisbon treaty the exit does not require new negotiations as the success of a voting initiative only depends on the number and total population of the supporting member states. Using the Shapley-Shubik power index we calculate the member states' powers with and without the United Kingdom and update earlier power forecasts using the Eurostat's latest population projections. There is a remarkably sharp relation between population size and the change in power: Brexit increases the largest members', while decreases the smallest ones' powers. JEL: C71, D72Keywords: European Union, Council of the European Union, qualified majority voting, power index, a priori voting power, demographics AcknowledgementThe author thanks the Hungarian Academy of Sciences for the financial support

Section: Data and Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Brexit Affects European Union Power Distribution

2016

SSRN Journal

“…This example is well known in the voting literature. Its first academic discussion is probably Brams and Affuso [3], but it has appeared in several other studies [11,[27][28][29].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exits from the European Union and Their Effect on Power Distribution in the Council

Petróczy

Rogers

2022

Games

Self Cite

Debates on an EU-leaving referendum arose in several member states after Brexit. We want to highlight how the exit of an additional country affects the power distribution in the Council of the European Union. We inspect the power indices of the member states both with and without the country which might leave the union. Our results show a pattern connected to a change in the number of states required to meet the 55% threshold. An exit that modifies this number benefits the countries with high population, while an exit that does not cause such a change benefits the small member states. According to our calculations, only the exit of Poland would be supported by the qualified majority of the Council.

“…By the Property of New Members [17,18] in the appropriate restriction of a weighted voting, remaining members should have more power. The departure of the United Kingdom does lead, for most players, to higher Shapley-Shubik index values (Tables A1 and A2).…”

Section: Who Wins?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Brexit and Power in the Council of the European Union

2021

Games

Self Cite

The exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union has had profound economic and political effects. Here, we look at a particular aspect, the power distribution in the Council of the European Union. Using the Shapley–Shubik power index, we calculate the member states’ powers with and without the United Kingdom and update earlier power forecasts using the Eurostat’s latest population projections. There is a remarkably sharp relation between population size and the change in power: Brexit increases the largest members’ powers while decreasing the smallest ones’ powers.