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The strongly stable core in weighted voting games

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Abstract

The problems associated with the concept of the core in spatial voting games such as non-existence and instability are well documented. The structurally stable core, presented by Schofield, attempts to resolve these problems by looking at the subset of the core which is still nonempty after a small change in voter preferences. Although this concept, combined with the adoption of supramajoritarian voting rules and weighted voting games, may very well explain the observed stability in reality, it may not be suitable for certain coalition situations. This article proposes a new solution concept, the strongly stable core. The conditions for the existence and the potential location of the strongly stable core are then explored and compared with those of the structurally stable core.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, Florida State University, 32306-2049, Tallahassee, FL

    Heemin Kim

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  1. Heemin Kim
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Additional information

I am grateful to Jong-Guk Bak, Randy Calvert, Cheryl Eavey, Patrick James, Paul E. Johnson, Glenn Parker, and Dale Smith for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. I thank Norman Schofield for clarifying some of the technical details of the structurally stable core for me and for providing a copy of his unpublished manuscript,Strategy of Party Competition. I also thank David Austen-Smith for bringing DeMarzo's work to my attention. Of course, any remaining errors are mine. This research was supported, in part, by the Florida State University's Council on Research and Creativity First-Year Assistant Professor Research Grant in 1992.

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Kim, H. The strongly stable core in weighted voting games. Public Choice 84, 77–90 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01047802

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