Agenda Influence and Its Implications

Abstract

When choosing from many competing alternatives, groups
\noften narrow the range of choice and then select from the
\nremaining alternatives using a predetermined procedure or
\nagenda. In some groups, this process may involve the use of committee reports and parliamentary procedure. In others, choices may be narrowed by common consent, by the chairman, or by some other means and "voting" may proceed in a predetermined, non-parliamentary fashion. Recent developments in the theory of group choice (embodied in a literature that has come to be known as the "social choice" literature) suggest that there probably is no single
\nnondictatorial method of aggregating the preferences of an electorate that will reliably produce a choice which satisfies minimal consistency and rationality standards.