IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jothpo/v7y1995i2p107-123.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Duncan Black and Lewis Carroll

Author

Listed:
  • Iain McLean
  • Alistair McMillan
  • Burt L. Monroe

Abstract

After evaluating the stature of Duncan Black as one of the founders of the modern theoretical study of politics, we show how frustrated Black was by the lack of recognition accorded to his work, especially in the UK. This led to considerable difficulty in getting his work published. In particular, his work on a like-minded predecessor, C. L. Dodgson (`Lewis Carroll'), remains in part unpublished. In it, Black withdraws his earlier assertion that Carroll's work on proportional representation and tennis tournaments was `trivial', in favor of detailed analysis of Carroll's contribution, which Black praises extravagantly as being one of the most important contributions ever to Political Science. We conclude by relating Carroll's theorem of 1884 on the proportionality of what is now called Single Nontransferable Vote (SNTV) to the modern literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Iain McLean & Alistair McMillan & Burt L. Monroe, 1995. "Duncan Black and Lewis Carroll," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 7(2), pages 107-123, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:7:y:1995:i:2:p:107-123
    DOI: 10.1177/0951692895007002001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0951692895007002001
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0951692895007002001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Downing & Elizabeth Stafford, 1981. "Citations as an indicator of classic works and major contributors in social choice," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 219-230, January.
    2. Cox, Gary W. & Rosenbluth, Frances, 1993. "The Electoral Fortunes of Legislative Factions in Japan," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(3), pages 577-589, September.
    3. Mitchell, William C, 1993. "Prolegomenon to Public Choice: The Aborted Work of George E. G. Catlin," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 77(2), pages 445-453, October.
    4. Cox, Gary W., 1994. "Strategic Voting Equilibria under the Single Nontransferable Vote," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(3), pages 608-621, September.
    5. Duncan Black, 1967. "The central argument in Lewis Carroll's The Principles of Parliamentary Representation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 1-17, January.
    6. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    7. Duncan Black, 1970. "Lewis Carroll and the Cambridge mathematical school of P.R.; Arthur Cohen and Edith Denman," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 1-28, March.
    8. Duncan Black, 1949. "The Elasticity Of Committee Decisions With Alterations In The Members' Preference Schedules," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 17(1), pages 88-102, March.
    9. Lembke B., 1918. "√ a. p," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 111(1), pages 709-712, February.
    10. Black, Duncan, 1969. "Lewis Carroll and the Theory of Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(2), pages 206-210, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Micael Castanheira, 2003. "Why Vote For Losers?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1207-1238, September.
    2. Kei Kawai & Yasutora Watanabe, 2013. "Inferring Strategic Voting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 624-662, April.
    3. Arturas Rozenas, 2011. "Constituency size and stability of two-party systems," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 23(3), pages 344-358, July.
    4. Alain Marciano, 2024. "What should economists do?: A historical perspective," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 37(3), pages 237-254, September.
    5. Meya, Johannes & Poutvaara, Panu & Schwager, Robert, 2020. "Pocketbook voting, social preferences, and expressive motives in referenda," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 185-205.
    6. Spenkuch, Jörg, 2013. "On the Extent of Strategic Voting," MPRA Paper 50198, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Thomas E. Borcherding, 2002. "The Contributions of James M.Buchanan to Public Finance and Political Economy," Public Finance Review, , vol. 30(6), pages 646-666, November.
    8. Mahajan, Aseem & Pongou, Roland & Tondji, Jean-Baptiste, 2023. "Supermajority politics: Equilibrium range, policy diversity, utilitarian welfare, and political compromise," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 307(2), pages 963-974.
    9. Daniel Kselman & Emerson Niou, 2011. "Protest voting in plurality elections: a theory of voter signaling," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 148(3), pages 395-418, September.
    10. Spenkuch, Jörg L., 2012. "Please don’t vote for me: strategic voting in a natural experiment with perverse incentives," MPRA Paper 38416, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Alain Marciano, 2009. "Buchanan’s constitutional political economy: exchange vs. choice in economics and in politics," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 42-56, March.
    12. Spenkuch, Jörg L., 2018. "Expressive vs. strategic voters: An empirical assessment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 73-81.
    13. Emily Clough, 2008. "Still Converging? a Downsian Party System Without Polls," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 20(4), pages 461-476, October.
    14. Dean Lacy & Emerson M. S. Niou, 1998. "Elections in Double-Member Districts with Nonseparable Voter Preferences," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 10(1), pages 89-110, January.
    15. Gintis, Herbert, 2016. "Homo Ludens: Social rationality and political behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 126(PB), pages 95-109.
    16. Justin Mattias Valasek, 2012. "Get Out The Vote: How Encouraging Voting Changes Political Outcomes," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(3), pages 346-373, November.
    17. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    18. Kaivan Munshi & Mark Rosenzweig, 2008. "The Efficacy of Parochial Politics: Caste, Commitment, and Competence in Indian Local Governments," NBER Working Papers 14335, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Sergei Rogosin & Maryna Dubatovskaya, 2017. "Letnikov vs. Marchaud: A Survey on Two Prominent Constructions of Fractional Derivatives," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 6(1), pages 1-15, December.
    20. , Aisdl, 2019. "What Citizenship for What Transition?: Contradictions, Ambivalence, and Promises in Post-Socialist Citizenship Education in Vietnam," OSF Preprints jyqp5, Center for Open Science.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:7:y:1995:i:2:p:107-123. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.