Electing popes: Approval balloting and qualified-majority rule

Journal of Interdisciplinary History

Volumn 29, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 1-22

  Colomer, Josep M ^a,b   McLean, Iain ^c  

^a CSIC   (Spain)

^b GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^c UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 3042816395     PISSN: 00221953     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/002219598551616     Document Type: Article

References (94)

1. Kenneth Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values (New York, 1951);
2. William H. Riker, Liberalism against Populism (San Francisco, 1982);
3. Allen Gibbard, "Manipulation of Voting Schemes: A General Result," Econometrica, XLI (1973), 587-601;
4. Mark Satterthwaite, "Strategy-Proofness and Arrow's Conditions," Journal of Economic Theory, X (1975), 187-217;
5. Richard D. McKelvey, "General Conditions for Global Intransitivities in Formal Voting Models," Econometrica, XLVII (1979), 1085-1111.
6. M. J. A. Nicholas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, Essai sur l'application de l'analyse à la probabilité des décisions rendues à la pluralité des voix (Paris, 1785);
7. McLean and Fiona Hewitt, Condorcet: Foundations of Social Choice and Political Theory (Brookfield, Vt., 1994);
8. McLean, Alistair McMillan, and Burt L. Monroe, A Mathematical Approach to Proportional Representation: Duncan Black on Lewis Carroll (Boston, 1996);
9. Duncan Black and Ronald A. Newing, Committee Decisions until Complementary Valuation (Glasgow, 1951);
10. Black, The Theory of Committees and Elections (Cambridge 1958).
11. McLean and John London, "The Borda and the Condorcet Principles: Three Medieval Applications," Social Choice and Welfare, VII (1990), 99-108;
12. McLean and Arnold B. Urken, Classics of Social Choice (Ann Arbor, 1995);
13. Marji Lines, "Approval Voting and Strategy Analysis: A Venetian Example," Theory and Decision, XX (1986), 155-172.
14. For medieval canon law, see also Angelo M. Cherubini (ed.), Bullarium Ramanum novissimum (Rome, 1638);
15. Emil Friedberg, Corpus Juris Canonici (Leipzig, 1879);
16. Paul Fabre and Louis Duchesne (eds.), Le Liber Censuum de l'Eglise romaine (Paris 1889-1952), 3v.;
17. Norman Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (Washington, D.C., 1990),
18. translated from Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta (ed. Giuseppe Alberigo et al.) (Bologna, 1973; 3d ed.).
19. H. E. J. Cowdrey, The Epistolae Vagantes of Gregory VII (Oxford, 1972), xvii.
20. All of these numbers remain the subject of some dispute. See Gaetano Moroni, "Cardinal," in Dizionario de erudizione storico ecclesiastica (Venice, 1891), IX, 272-318;
21. Gaetano Moroni, in Dizionario de erudizione storico ecclesiastica (X, 5-26;
22. T. Ortolan, "Election des Papes," in Alfred Vacant and E. Mangenot (eds.), Dictionnaire de théologie catholique (Paris, 1939), IV, 2282-2319.
23. Specific data for the calculations in this study are in Jean Gaudemet, Eglise et cité. Histoire du droit canonique (Paris, 1994).
24. Cowdrey, Epistolae Vagantes, xxvii.
25. Cf. J. Gilchrist, "The Reception of Pope Gregory VII into the Canon Law (1073-1141)," Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, kanonistische Abteilung, LIX (1973), 35-82.
26. For canonists' writing on voting rules, see especially Gerardus Franses (ed.), Summa "Elegantius in iure divino" seu Coloniensis (1169) (New York, 1969);
27. Ernest Adolph Theodor Laspeyres (ed.), Bernardi Papiensis, Summa Decretalium, cap. II, "Bernardi Summa de Electione" (1178) (Graz, 1956);
28. Romualdo Trifone (ed.), "Guiglelmo Nassone, Lecturae e Summae, section 'Ad quod capitulum vacante sede' (c. 1234)," Rivista di Storia del Diritto Italiano, II, (1929), 242-260;
29. Paul Viollet (ed.), "Guillaume de Mandagout, Tractatus de electionibus (c. 1285)," in Histoire littéraire de la France (Paris, 1914), xxxiv;
30. Henrici de Segusio, Cardinalis Hostiensis, Summa Aurea, "De electione, & electi potestate" (1574-1581) (Turin, 1963; new ed.);
31. Primum Decretalium Librum Commentaria, "Electione, & electi potestate" (1581) (Turin, 1965; new ed.).
32. We have also examined writings by Ruffinus (1157-1159), Stephanus Tornacensus (c. 1160), Bernardus Compostellanus (c. 1178), Simon von Bisignano (c. 1179), Panormitanus (Nicholas de Tudeschis), and Baldo degli Ubaldi (c. 1350). Johannes Dominicus Mansi (ed.), Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio (Venice, 1759-1793), XIX, 897, 907.
33. For the election of Gregory VII in 1073, as reported by the pope himself, see Jacques-Paul Migne (ed.), Patrologia Latina (Paris, 1853), CXLVIII, 643-734;
34. Alexander Murray, "Pope Gregory VII and His Letters," Traditio, XXII (1966), 149-201;
35. Ian S. Robinson, The Papacy 1073-1198: Continuity and Innovation (Cambridge, 1990), 59-60.
36. Adhemer Esmein, "L'unanimité et al majorité dans les élections canoniques," in Mélanges Fitting (Montpellier, 1907);
37. Edoardo Ruffini Avondo, "Il principio maggioritario nella storia del Diritto Canonico," Archivio Giuridico "Filippo Serafini," IX (1925) 15-67;
38. Leo Moulin, "Les origines réligieuses des techniques électorales et déliberatives modernes," Revue Internationale d'Histoire Politique et Constitutionelle, III (1953), 106-148;
39. Leo Moulin, "idem, "Sanior et maior pars. Studio sull'evoluzione delle tecniche elettorali negli ordini religiosi dal VI al XIII secolo," Studi Politici, VI (1959), 48-75;
40. Alexis Petrani, "Genèse de la majorité qualifiée," Apollinaris, XXX (1957), 430-438;
41. Gaudemet, "Unanimité et majorité (Observations sur quelques études récentes)," in Etudes historiques à la mémoire de Noël Didier (Paris 1960), 149-162;
42. Robinson, Papacy.
43. Our source for this account is Onuphrio Panvinio, Epitome Pantificum Ramanorum. A S. Petro usque ad Paulum IV. Gestorum (videlicet) electionisque Singulorum, & Conclavium Compendiaria Narratio (Venice, 1557).
44. See also Franz Josef Schmale, Studien zum Schisma des Jahres 1130 (Köln, 1961).
45. Ruffini Avondo, "Il principle maggioritario"; idem, I sistemi di deliberazione collettiva nel medioevo italiano (Turin 1927);
46. Ladislas Konopczynski, Le Liberum veto. Etude sur le développement du principe majoritaire (Paris, 1930);
47. Marshall W. Baldwin, Alexander III and the Twelfth Century (New York, 1968);
48. Murray, Reason and Society (Oxford, 1978);
49. Lines, "Approval Voting."
50. Alberigo et al. (eds.) Oecumenica Concilia, 2;
51. Donald G. Saari, Geometry of Voting (Berlin, 1994), 15-16.
52. Issue space is a technical term from social choice theory. If opinions are divided along more than one dimension - for instance, about religious belief and about nationality - they can be mapped onto a diagram where one axis (say, the x axis) represents the possible positions on issue 1 and another (say, the y axis) represents the possible positions on issue 2, thus creating an issue space. The positions of individuals within that space can be mapped using Cartesian coordinates.
53. Andrew Caplin and Barry Nalebuff, "On 64%-Majority Rule," Econometrica, LVI (1988), 787-814;
54. Andrew Caplin and Barry Nalebuff, idem, "Aggregation and Social Choice: A Mean Voter Theorem," Econometrica, ibid., LIX (1991), 1-23;
55. Saari, Geometry of Voting, 92-93;
56. Saari, idem, Basic Geometry of Voting (Berlin, 1995), 62;
57. Saari, idem, "The Generic Existence of a Core for q-rules," Journal of Economic Theory, IX (1997), 219-260;
58. Riker, The Art of Political Manipulation (New Haven, 1986);
59. idem (ed.), Agenda Formation (Ann Arbor, 1993).
60. Florence A. Gragg and Leona C. Gabel (eds.), Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope: The Commentaries of Pius II (New York, 1959), 88.
61. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Du Contrat Social (Paris, 1762), II, iii
62. and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Du Contrat Social IV, ii;
63. McLean and Hewitt, Condorcet, 34-43.
64. Ruffini Avondo, "Il principio maggioritario."
65. See also Peter Herde, "Election and Abdication of the Pope: Practice and Doctrine in the Thirteenth Century," Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, VII (1985), 411-436;
66. André Vauchez, Apogée de la Papauté et expansion de la Chrétienté (1054-1274) (Paris, 1990).
67. Herde, "Election and Abdication," 418;
68. Ruffiini Avondo, "Il principio maggioritario";
69. Walter Ullmann, A Short History of the Papacy in the Middle Ages (London, 1972).
70. Herde, "Election and Abdication," 427.
71. The rules of conclave, their enforcement, and successive modifications can be found in D.J.C.B., Los Papas y el Cónclave (Barcelona, 1878);
72. Lucio Lector, Le conclave (Paris, 1894);
73. Ortolan, "Conclave," in Vacant and Mangenot (eds.), Dictionnaire de théologie catholique (Paris, 1938), III, 707-727.
74. Other rules about the timing of the election are in Ordo Romanus, XII. See Migne (ed.), Patrologia Latina (1844/1845), LXXVIII, cols. 1063-1106, esp. 1097-1100.
75. Steven Brams and Peter Fishburn, "Approval Voting," American Political Science Review, LXXII (1978), 831-847;
76. Steven Brams and Peter Fishburn, idem, Approval Voting (Boston, 1983);
77. Hannu Nurmi, Comparing Voting Systems (Dordrecht, 1987);
78. Samuel Merrill, Making Multicandidate Elections More Democratic (Princeton, 1988).
79. Gaytani's writings about procedures in papal elections can be found in Johanne Mabillon and Michaele Germain, Musei Italici. Tomus II. Complectens Antiquos Libros Rituales Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae (Paris, 1689), 245ff.
80. See also Moroni, "Cardinals." who claims that Gaytani was Boniface's nephew.
81. Betty Radice, The Letters of the Younger Pliny (Harmondsworth, 1969), 220-224;
82. Riker, Political Manipulation, 78-88.
83. Merrill, Mnlticandidate Elections;
84. Brams, "Polls and the Problem of Strategic Information and Voter Behavior," Society, XIX (1982), 4-11.
85. Data in this paragraph are from Ullmann, History of the Papacy, 232;
86. Moroni, "Cardinals," 287.
87. Lector, Le conclave; anon., Histoire des Conclaves depuis Clement V jusqu'à présent (Paris, 1689).
88. Michel Mollat du Jourdin and Vauchez, Un temps d'épreuves (1274-1449) (Paris, 1990), 108-113.
89. Data in this section not otherwise referenced are from Histoire des Conclaves, pages too numerous to list.
90. In 1559, the secretary of Bartolomé de la Cueva, an old Spanish cardinal, privately asked each member of a conclave to give his master one approval vote, as a gift to show the elder that he had at least one friend. The trick was discovered when seventeen out of thirty-two ballots included that name in their lists. Similar stratagems have been attributed to other cardinals. See D. J. C. B., Las Papas, 143-144;
91. Lector, Le Conclave 405, 622-623;
92. Histoire des Conclaves, 83, 161, 240).
93. "Focal points" were first defined by Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Oxford, 1960), 57.
94. For a book-length discussion of coordination in this class of electoral games, see Gary Cox, Making Votes Count: Strategic Coordination in the World's Electoral Systems (Cambridge, 1997).