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by crazygringo 442 days ago
I'm using modern terminology. There's no relevant distinction here:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/democracy-and-republ...

The fundamental democratic principle is the same.

And we measure the will of the people in elections, without having to worry about Arrow... it's procedural.

1 comments

Arrow is not at all "procedural", the French know it well: the 1995 presidential election ended with a Chirac vs Le Pen (the patriarch) duel, even though Lionel Jospin was the favorite and would have beaten both if he had faced them off... A clear example of non-transitivity in elections.
That's my point, sorry if it wasn't clear. Non-transitivity is resolved procedurally. We can theorize about Arrow all we want; in the meantime we can write rules that actually do produce electoral results.
My point is that it wasn't resolved: Jospin was the favorite, but the French were forced to choose between two candidates the majority of them loathed. The rules were a failure.

(2002 election, not 1995 - my bad)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_French_presidential_elect...

Sorry, 2002 election.