The Structure of Heresthetical Power

Abstract

This article considers manipulation of collective choice — in such environments, a potential alternative is powerful only to the degree that its introduction can affect the collective decision. Using the Banks set (Banks, 1985), we present and characterize alternatives that can, and those that can not, affect sophisticated collective decision-making. Along with offering two substantive findings about political manipulation and a link between our results and Riker's concept of heresthetic, we define a new tournament solution concept that refines the Banks set, which we refer to as the heresthetically stable set.

Orderings based on the banks set: Some new scoring methods for multicriteria decision making

“…4 Fey [11] shows that generically, the expected size of the Banks set is equal to the cardinality of the set of alternatives in random tournaments as the number of alternatives increases without bound. 5 For more on the dependence of one alternative on another, see [13,14]. 6 A solution is independent of the loosers if the set of winners does not change when the relation between two nonwinners change.…”

“…The new scores are shown to measure important aspects of alternatives not captured by extant scoring methods and are illustrated in collective choice settings.Alternative 3 has low SHCH score and low NUMCH score. 22 Use of the word ''needs'' here is related to, but distinct from, the needing relation of [13] and [14].…”

“…Alternative 3 has low SHCH score and low NUMCH score. 22 Use of the word ''needs'' here is related to, but distinct from, the needing relation of [13] and [14].…”

Heresthetics and choice from tournaments

“…While the strategic motivations of voters and agenda-setters have been well studied when the set of alternatives is fixed (Austen-Smith and Duggan, 2005;Banks, 1985Banks, , 1989Farquharson, 1969), much less is known about the effect of strategic inclusion or removal of alternatives, heresthetics or the ''art of political strategy'', on collective choice. Moser et al (2009) provide one formalization of heresthetics and study the manipulation of issue dimensions on collective choice outcomes when sophisticated voters vote on alternatives ordered by a strategic agenda-setter. In doing so they introduce the heresthetically stable set (denoted by HS) as the set of outcomes least susceptible to manipulation of issue dimension.…”

Harnessing policy windows : using lessons from the post 9 11 GI Bill passage to garner congressional support for US military requirements

“…There is an entire theoretical body on how a public policy agenda can be set, or more exactly, manipulated (Cohen, 1991;Dardanelli, 2009;Evangelista, 2001;Moser, Patty & Penn, 2009;Nagel, 1993;Shepsle, 2003;Taylor, 2005;Weimer, 1992). When politicians (or policy advocates) set -or control -the agenda, they use language strategically, to garner additional advocates or mitigate the power of dissenting arguments -an art Riker (1986) refers to as "heresthetic."…”