The spatial model of social choice and voting

Abstract

This chapter presents the basic elements of the standard spatial model commonly that is used as a framework for developing theories of legislative, electoral, and other forms of social choice and voting and is increasingly used in empirical analysis as well. It introduces the concepts of singlepeaked and Euclidean preferences, win sets, the Condorcet winner, the core, median lines, the yolk, and the uncovered set, and presents such foundational results as Black’s Median Voter Theorem, Plott’s Majority Rule Equilibrium Theorem, McKelvey’s Global Cycling Theorem, and Greenberg’s Core Existence Theorem.