The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (53 page)

Majorities in each of several bodies, such as houses in a legislature. Used specifically by John C.
Calhoun
for the claim that a policy (on slavery, for instance) should not be implemented unless a majority in both areas affected agreed with it. This would of course have resulted in no policy on slavery being adopted at all. Many constitutions require concurrent majorities for certain sorts of weighty decisions.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(1743–94)
French scientist, revolutionary, and political theorist. Born into the aristocracy, and originally intended to be a priest or a soldier, Condorcet escaped both by becoming a mathematician and soon being taken under the wings of powerful patrons associated with the Academy of Sciences in Paris and with the
Encyclopédie
. His professional career was made in the Academy, whose permanent secretary he became. In the 1760s he established himself as a leading mathematician with his work on integral calculus. Condorcet was associated with
Voltaire
and other figures of the French
Enlightenment
in their campaigns against the legal system, which had led to the persecution and judicial murder of religious dissidents. This led him towards his grand project of applying probability theory to social science in the shape of his
jury
theorem.
In Condorcet's view, social science should be studied with the same tools as engineering or biology. Probability was the key to all the sciences. For example, a naval engineer cannot design an unsinkable ship, but can design one that would sink only in the most improbably violent storm—say, one that occurred only once in every 400 years. Analogously, a designer of jury systems cannot design one that will never convict an innocent suspect. But if a jury system is set up in which the reliability of each juror—the probability that the juror will make the correct observation on whether the accused is guilty or not—is known, the probability that an innocent person will be convicted can be held down to an acceptable level by requiring a majority of a certain number of jurors to convict. Condorcet was the first to apply the advances in probability theory made by Thomas Bayes ( see
Richard Price
) and the Bernoulli family to social science.
Condorcet's probability theory had an uneasy relationship with his theory of voting. His chief work is the
Essai sur l'application de l'analyse à la probabilité des décisions rendues à la pluralité des voix
(Essay on the application of mathematics to the probability of majority decisions, 1785). This is so difficult that even the meaning of the title is hard for the non-specialist to understand. The first clear exposition of it was by
Black
in 1958, and the
Essai
was not fully understood until the 1980s. In it, Condorcet tries to select the voting procedure that is most likely to select the ‘correct’ result. This is open to the objection that, generally, there is no such thing. In a jury trial, the accused either did or did not commit the crime as charged. There is a correct answer to this question, which the jury tries to find. But there is no correct answer to the question ‘Which party should govern Britain for the next five years?’; there are merely interests and opinions. However, Condorcet's method led him to a discovery which, although it all but made his own approach unworkable, came to create the entirely new subject of
social choice
, nearly 200 years after Condorcet's death. This was the discovery of majority-rule
cycles
. When there are at least three voters and at least three options, it is always possible that option A beats B by a majority, B beats C, and C beats A, all at the same time. Condorcet proposed ways of identifying what he regarded as the ‘true’ majority winner whether or not there was a cycle among the winning options ( see
Condorcet winner
).
Condorcet is also well known for his
Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain
(Sketch of a history of the progress of the human mind, 1795). The philosopher of the Enlightenment, in hiding from the murderous politicians of the revolutionary Terror who were soon to claim his life, paints a serene picture of the progress of humanity from superstition, religion, and barbarism to mathematics, probability, and enlightenment. Widely regarded as the most tragi-comic product of the French Enlightenment, the
Esquisse
is gaining renewed attention as its connection with Condorcet's scientific work is understood. It was the unacknowledged precursor of
Comte's
similar work. Condorcet was also one of the first feminist political writers.
Condorcet was first involved in practical politics as a trusted aide of
Turgot
during the latter's brief ministry. He returned to politics as the
French Revolution
progressed. The height of his power was as a leading member of the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention in 1792–3. He drafted a report on public instruction that was immediately overtaken by wars and riots, but came to inspire the centralized and uniform French school system as it has remained to this day. And he wrote a constitution for France embodying his ideal voting procedures. This was debated in early 1793, and Condorcet's voting procedures were actually implemented in neighbouring Geneva (with chaotic results). But in June 1793 the
Girondin
members of the Convention were expelled at the demand of rioting members of the
Commune
of Paris. Condorcet was not a Girondin, but he joined them in defeat by complaining that the victorious
jacobins
had scrapped his constitution in favour of one written by
Robespierre
which failed to understand the theory of voting. This sealed Condorcet's fate. He was expelled from the Convention, hid in the house of a brave Parisian landlady, escaped from there in order to avoid her being guillotined for harbouring an outlaw, was arrested when he turned up, starving, in a village inn which happened to be run by an informer for the Committee of Public Safety, and was found dead in prison the next day.
Condorcet's ideas were more influential than his contemporaries recognized. Through his close friendship with
Jefferson
, he tried to influence the American constitution-making process. In this, as in other areas, his true stature is only now emerging.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(1764–1822)
French feminist writer. Alleged by their enemies to be the malign influence behind her husband
Condorcet's
support for republicanism and feminism during the
French Revolution
. Her best-known work over her own name is a French translation of
Smith's
Theory of Moral Sentiments
. She played a large part in the feminist writings published either jointly or over her husband's name. These argued that the biological differences between men and women did not constitute any reason for treating them differently in education, the job market, or civil rights.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

The option, or candidate, in a multicandidate election, which wins a simple majority against each of the others when every pair of candidates is compared. Voting rules inspired by Condorcet seek to find the Condorcet winner if one exists. If there is a
cycle
among the leading candidates, then there is no Condorcet winner, and some tie-breaking procedure is needed. Various candidates for such a procedure have been suggested, but there is (and probably can be) no agreement on which is the best.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search