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Collective decision-making is studied from various perspective, like the following:

  • Social Choice Theory, which is about aggregation of judgments or preferences, such as by various ways of voting.(1,2,3)

  • Public Choice Theory, which focuses on decision-makers as self-interested agents.(4)

  • Individual decision-making and its fallacies. (5)

  • Theory of representation (6) and delegation (see liquid democracy in the list of examples.)

  • The study of decision-making based on reason, knowledge, and wisdom, like in noöcracy and epistocracy. (7, 8)

  • Argumentation theory, that is, logic, rhetorics, public discourse, and so on.

  • Deliberation (as in citizen's assemblies) and group dynamics.

  • System change, as in organisations.

  • Global governance

These areas would have to be supplemented by relevant portions of politicology, sociology, psychology, anthropology, e-democracy, organisation theory (bureaucracy) and so on, not to mention problem analysis and goal setting.

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  1. Arrow, K.A. ; Sen, A.; Suzumura, K. (eds.) (2001) Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, Elsevier/North-Holland                                                                                             https://www.ier.hit-u.ac.jp/Common/publication/DP/DP417.pdf

  2. List, C. (2013) Social Choice Theory in: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/social-choice/

  3. Amadae, S.M.: Impossibility Theorem. https://www.britannica.com/topic/impossibility-theorem (Especially the bottom line.)

  4. Rowley, C. K.; Schneider, F. (2004) The Encyclopedia of Public Choice, Springer.  https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2Fb108558

  5. Gilboa, I. (2011) Making better decisions, Wiley-Blackwell.

  6. Tangian, A. (2014) Mathematical theory of democracy, Springer.

   7. Vandamme, P.-E. (2019) What’s wrong with an epistocratic council? Politics, Vol. 40, nr. 1.

   8. Sakai, R. (2020) Mathematical Models and Robustness Analysis in Epistemic Democracy:

       A Systematic Review of Diversity Trumps Ability Theorem Models. Philosophy of the Social                 Sciences, Vol. 50, nr. 3.

Decision theory: examples

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