Shapley and Shubik in 1954 proposed an index to measure the relative voting power of members of a decision-making body, given their weights in the said body. In this article, we have tried to investigate whether one can ensure equal voting power for all the citizens in a democracy through their respective representatives in the state legislature. The article shows that if the citizens realise their voting power through legislators and the number of constituencies in a democracy are at most four, then there does not exist any weighted voting rule such that the citizens enjoy equal voting power.

 

JEL: C71, D71, D72

 

https://doi.org/10.1177/09767479231164815