Some literature on ranked choice voting

Dropping these here as a convenient place to keep them.

The issue of ranked choice voting versus first-past-the-post voting is a hot one in Canada right now -- its profile has been raised by former prime minister Justin Trudeau, who appears remorseful about not having done anything to move the country in the ranked direction. Here is some literature on the controversy.

Martin Horak (2021)

Adopting Ranked-Choice Voting in London, Ontario.

Michael Cowan (2025), “Ranking Bad: The Chemistry of Ranked‑Choice Voting.” ResPublica: Undergraduate Journal of Political Science.

Rivard & Lockhart (2022), “Government Preferences, Vote Choice and Strategic Voting in Canada.” Canadian Journal of Political Science.

Examines how voters use expectations about government formation to guide their choices.
Highly relevant because strategic voting is one of the main behaviors RCV aims to reduce.

Donovan, Todd, Caroline Tolbert & Kellen Gracey (2019). “Self‑Reported Understanding of Ranked‑Choice Voting.” Social Science Quarterly.

Finds that voters quickly learn RCV and report high satisfaction with the system.
Supports the argument that Canadians could adopt RCV without major voter confusion.

Christian List & Marcus Pivato (2014). “Emergent Democracy.” Philosophy & Public Affairs, 42(3), 207–236.

Explores how relaxing Arrow‑type assumptions can allow for democratic aggregation that avoids impossibility results.
Offers one of the most sophisticated “escape routes” from Arrow in contemporary political theory.

Mass Polarization in Canada: What’s Causing It? Why Should We Care? — Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy

Comments

Searle: The Chinese Room

John Searle has become the object of accusations of improper conduct. These accusations even have some people in the world of academic philosophy saying that instructors in that world should try to avoid teaching Searle's views. That is an odd contention, and has given rise to heated exchanges in certain corners of the blogosphere. At Leiter Reports, I encountered a comment from someone describing himself as "grad student drop out." GSDO said: " This is a side question (and not at all an attempt to answer the question BL posed): How important is John Searle's work? Are people still working on speech act theory or is that just another dead end in the history of 20th century philosophy? My impression is that his reputation is somewhat inflated from all of his speaking engagements and NYRoB reviews. The Chinese room argument is a classic, but is there much more to his work than that?" I took it upon myself to answer that on LR. But here I'll tak...

A Story About Coleridge

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Five Lessons from the Allegory of the Cave

Please correct me if there are others. But it seems to be there are five lessons the reader is meant to draw from the story about the cave. First, Plato is working to devalue what we would call empiricism. He is saying that keeping track of the shadows on the cave wall, trying to make sense of what you see there, will NOT get you to wisdom. Second, Plato is contending that reality comes in levels. The shadows on the wall are illusions. The solid objects being passed around behind my back are more real than their shadows are. BUT … the world outside the the cave is more real than that — and the sun by which that world is illuminated is the top of the hierarchy. So there isn’t a binary choice of real/unreal. There are levels. Third, he equates realness with knowability. I only have opinions about the shadows. Could I turn around, I could have at least the glimmerings of knowledge. Could I get outside the cave, I would really Know. Fourth, the parable a...

Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

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