Social Choice Course Overview: Societal Decision-Making Explained

1. Social ChoiceSession 1 Carmen Pasca and John Hey

2. Session 1 • This lecture is partly organisational and partly for you to get to know us and for us to get to know you. Topics include: • Organisation of the course. • The website. • The lectures. • The other activities: experiments, debates, discussions, exercise classes. • Assessment. • Contacting us: • Lecturer: Carmen Pasca (cpasca@luiss.it) • Lecturer: John Hey (john.hey@york.ac.uk) • Assistant: Mattia de’ Grassi di Pianura (mdegrassi@luiss.it )

3. What is the course about? • Social Choice – the name captures all … and nothing. • It is about choice in society. • How Societies should choose. • How Societies could choose. • How societies can choose. • How Societies do choose. • It is an enormous topic and you are not expected to memorise all the detail in all its complexity. • We want you to get an overview. • Do not read and memorise … think and generalise.

4. The organisation of the course • We have some lectures. • We have some debates. • We have some experiments. • We have some discussions. • There is a problem in that there are lots of students on the course. • This creates organisational difficulties. • We are happy if the uncommitted students drop out. • We only want committed students who will take an active role and interact with us and the other students.

5. The course structure (1) • Week 1 Session 1: Overview of course. • Week 1 Session 2: How Can Societies Choose? (part 1). Individual preferences and Arrow. • Week 2 Session 3: How Can Societies Choose? (part 2). Weakening Arrow. • Week 2 Session 4: How Can Societies Choose? (part 3). Preferences over Principles. • Week 3 Session 5: Experiment on the above. • Week 4 Session 6: How Can Societies Choose? (part 4). Preferences with Measurable Utilities.

6. The course structure (2) • Week 4 Session 7: Strategic Decision Making. • Week 5 Session 8: Public Goods. • Week 5 Session 9: Collective Action. • Week 6 Session 10 An Experiment on Public Goods. • Week 6 Session 11: How Do Societies Choose? (part 1). Definitions at different levels of decision. • Week 7 Session 12: How Do Societies Choose? (part 2). Voting systems to elect decision-making bodies. • Week 7 Session 13: How Do Societies Choose? (part 3). Voting systems within decision-making bodies.

7. The course structure (3) • Week 8 Session 14: How do Societies Choose the Way That They Choose?. • Week 9 Session 15: Social Contract Theory (part 1). • Week 10 Session 16: Social Contract Theory (part 2). • Week 10 Session 17: A Debate on David Cameron's idea of the Big Society. • Week 11 Session 18: An account of the writing of the US Constitution.

8. The course structure (4) • Week 11 Session 19: A Comparison of different Constitutions, particularly those of the US, France and Italy. • Week 12 Session 20: An historical discussion of the evolution of the Italian constitutions through several versions. • Week 12 Session 21: A Cambridge Union type debate on the motion "This House Believes that Italy should adopt the US Constitution". • Week 13 Session 22: Overview and Conclusion. • Week 13 Session 23: Overview, Revision and Assessment Preparation. We shall also talk about assessment by Group Project.

9. The website • Please look at this frequently: www.luiss.it/hey/social choice/

10. Lectures • All the lectures will be available via the site. • We recommend that you look at them both before and after the lectures… • … so that you come prepared. • You are not expected to memorise the lectures but instead understand the theme of the lectures and be able to take away general conclusions. • There will be some reading recommended but you are not expected to memorise the content.

11. The other activities: experiments, debates, discussions, exercise classes • With such a large number of students we are not quite sure yet how we are going to organise these other activities. • But we expect students to take an active role. • We may have to split up the group into smaller groups in some way. • We may run some experiments in the CESARE laboratory which is at Viale Pola. • We will be asking for volunteers to take part in the debates.

12. Assessment • We know that this is not important to you, but there are two methods of assessment: • A conventional examination. • Assessment by Group Project in which a self-appointed group of students write a project on a self-chosen topic approved by us. • Some titles from last year: • Berlusconi and Italian Politics: Why Italians Chose a Business Man Named Silvio Berlusconi? • Ill and Poor: Better it to be in the UK or in France? • Is it better to live in a dictatorship or in a democracy? • The Value of the Vote • Mind the Gap! How come Israel had a woman prime minister and Italy not (yet!)? • Social Order: How is social order sustained in human societies? • Voting Systems and Fairness: Two railway tracks: Parallel as in reality or converging as if seen in perspective? • In Sickness and in Health – better to be British or French? • If we decide to establish a new nation, which legal system would we choose?

13. And finally… • Do contact one of us if you have any questions. • Otherwise • ENJOY and LEARN!