Counting the Many The Origins and Limits of Supermajority Rule [Hardcover]

Examines the history underlying the use of supermajority voting rules and offers a critique of their ability to remedy the defects of majority decision making.Supermajority voting rules, rules that require more than a majority but less than unanimity, are used for many major political and social decisions in contemporary democracies. Although they are usually assumed to be important checks on the risk of tyranny of the majority, they have troublesome consequences. In this book, Melissa Schwartzberg examines the history and the logic underlying the use of supermajority voting rules and offers a forceful critique of their purported ability to remedy the defects of majority decision making.Supermajority voting rules, rules that require more than a majority but less than unanimity, are used for many major political and social decisions in contemporary democracies. Although they are usually assumed to be important checks on the risk of tyranny of the majority, they have troublesome consequences. In this book, Melissa Schwartzberg examines the history and the logic underlying the use of supermajority voting rules and offers a forceful critique of their purported ability to remedy the defects of majority decision making.Supermajority rules govern many features of our lives in common: from the selection of textbooks for our children's schools to residential covenants, from the policy choices of state and federal legislatures to constitutional amendments. It is usually assumed that these rules are not only normatively unproblematic but necessary to achieve the goals of institutional stability, consensus, and minority protections. In this book, Melissa Schwartzberg challenges the logic underlying the use of supermajority rule as an alternative to majority decision making. She traces the hidden history of supermajority decision making, which originally emerged as an alternative to unanimous rule, and highlights the tensions in the contemporary use of supermajority rules aslCD