Skip to main content
Top

2018 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

The Fluid Mechanics of Liquid Democracy

Authors : Paul Gölz, Anson Kahng, Simon Mackenzie, Ariel D. Procaccia

Published in: Web and Internet Economics

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config
loading …

Abstract

Liquid democracy is the principle of making collective decisions by letting agents transitively delegate their votes. Despite its significant appeal, it has become apparent that a weakness of liquid democracy is that a small subset of agents may gain massive influence. To address this, we propose to change the current practice by allowing agents to specify multiple delegation options instead of just one. Much like in nature, where—fluid mechanics teaches us—liquid maintains an equal level in connected vessels, so do we seek to control the flow of votes in a way that balances influence as much as possible. Specifically, we analyze the problem of choosing delegations to approximately minimize the maximum number of votes entrusted to any agent, by drawing connections to the literature on confluent flow. We also introduce a random graph model for liquid democracy, and use it to demonstrate the benefits of our approach both theoretically and empirically.

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 102.000 Bücher
  • über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Automobil + Motoren
  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
  • Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
  • Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Springer Professional "Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 67.000 Bücher
  • über 390 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Automobil + Motoren
  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
  • Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
  • Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe




 

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

  • über 67.000 Bücher
  • über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

  • Bauwesen + Immobilien
  • Business IT + Informatik
  • Finance + Banking
  • Management + Führung
  • Marketing + Vertrieb
  • Versicherung + Risiko




Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Footnotes
1
Throughout this paper, let \(\log \) denote the natural logarithm.
 
2
There is one relevant dataset that we know of, which was analyzed by Kling et al. [12]. However, due to stringent privacy constraints, the data privacy officer of the German Pirate Party was unable to share this dataset with us.
 
3
For one of their subprocedures, instead of directly optimizing a convex program, Chen et al. [5] reduce this problem to finding a lexicographically optimal maximum flow in \(\mathcal {O}(n^5)\). We choose to directly optimize the convex problem in Gurobi, hoping that this will increase efficiency in practice.
 
Literature
1.
go back to reference Azar, Y., Broder, A.Z., Karlin, A.R., Upfal, E.: Balanced allocations. In: Proceedings of the 26th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC), pp. 593–602 (1994) Azar, Y., Broder, A.Z., Karlin, A.R., Upfal, E.: Balanced allocations. In: Proceedings of the 26th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC), pp. 593–602 (1994)
3.
go back to reference Behrens, J., Kistner, A., Nitsche, A., Swierczek, B.: The principles of LiquidFeedback. Interaktive Demokratie (2014) Behrens, J., Kistner, A., Nitsche, A., Swierczek, B.: The principles of LiquidFeedback. Interaktive Demokratie (2014)
4.
go back to reference Brill, M.: Interactive democracy. In: Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-agent Systems (AAMAS) (2018) Brill, M.: Interactive democracy. In: Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-agent Systems (AAMAS) (2018)
5.
go back to reference Chen, J., Kleinberg, R.D., Lovász, L., Rajaraman, R., Sundaram, R., Vetta, A.: (Almost) tight bounds and existence theorems for single-commodity confluent flows. J. ACM 54(4) (2007). Article 16MathSciNetCrossRef Chen, J., Kleinberg, R.D., Lovász, L., Rajaraman, R., Sundaram, R., Vetta, A.: (Almost) tight bounds and existence theorems for single-commodity confluent flows. J. ACM 54(4) (2007). Article 16MathSciNetCrossRef
6.
go back to reference Chen, J., Rajaraman, R., Sundaram, R.: Meet and merge: Approximation algorithms for confluent flows. J. Comput. Syst. Sci. 72(3), 468–489 (2006)MathSciNetCrossRef Chen, J., Rajaraman, R., Sundaram, R.: Meet and merge: Approximation algorithms for confluent flows. J. Comput. Syst. Sci. 72(3), 468–489 (2006)MathSciNetCrossRef
7.
go back to reference Christoff, Z., Grossi, D.: Binary voting with delegable proxy: An analysis of liquid democracy. In: Proceedings of the 16th Conference on Theoretical Aspects of Rationality and Knowledge (TARK), pp. 134–150 (2017)MathSciNetCrossRef Christoff, Z., Grossi, D.: Binary voting with delegable proxy: An analysis of liquid democracy. In: Proceedings of the 16th Conference on Theoretical Aspects of Rationality and Knowledge (TARK), pp. 134–150 (2017)MathSciNetCrossRef
9.
go back to reference Green-Armytage, J.: Direct voting and proxy voting. Const. Polit. Econ. 26(2), 190–220 (2015)CrossRef Green-Armytage, J.: Direct voting and proxy voting. Const. Polit. Econ. 26(2), 190–220 (2015)CrossRef
10.
11.
go back to reference Kahng, A., Mackenzie, S., Procaccia, A.D.: Liquid democracy: An algorithmic perspective. In: Proceedings of the 32nd AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) (2018) Kahng, A., Mackenzie, S., Procaccia, A.D.: Liquid democracy: An algorithmic perspective. In: Proceedings of the 32nd AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) (2018)
12.
go back to reference Kling, C.C., Kunegis, J., Hartmann, H., Strohmaier, M., Staab, S.: Voting behaviour and power in online democracy. In: Proceedings of the 9th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM), pp. 208–217 (2015) Kling, C.C., Kunegis, J., Hartmann, H., Strohmaier, M., Staab, S.: Voting behaviour and power in online democracy. In: Proceedings of the 9th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM), pp. 208–217 (2015)
13.
go back to reference Kumar, R., Novak, J., Tomkins, A.: Structure and evolution of online social networks. In: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD), pp. 611–617 (2006) Kumar, R., Novak, J., Tomkins, A.: Structure and evolution of online social networks. In: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD), pp. 611–617 (2006)
14.
go back to reference Malyshkin, Y., Paquette, E.: The power of choice over preferential attachment. Lat. Am. J. Probab. Math. Stat. 12(2), 903–915 (2015)MathSciNetMATH Malyshkin, Y., Paquette, E.: The power of choice over preferential attachment. Lat. Am. J. Probab. Math. Stat. 12(2), 903–915 (2015)MathSciNetMATH
15.
go back to reference Miller, J.C.: A program for direct and proxy voting in the legislative process. Public Choice 7(1), 107–113 (1969)CrossRef Miller, J.C.: A program for direct and proxy voting in the legislative process. Public Choice 7(1), 107–113 (1969)CrossRef
16.
go back to reference Newman, M.E.J.: Clustering and preferential attachment in growing networks. Phys. Rev. E 64(2), 1–13 (2001) Newman, M.E.J.: Clustering and preferential attachment in growing networks. Phys. Rev. E 64(2), 1–13 (2001)
Metadata
Title
The Fluid Mechanics of Liquid Democracy
Authors
Paul Gölz
Anson Kahng
Simon Mackenzie
Ariel D. Procaccia
Copyright Year
2018
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04612-5_13

Premium Partner