One of the most basic problems in politics--maybe the basic problem--is how to translate the preferences of a diverse group of people into a single choice for the group as a whole. In other words, the problem is how to aggregate the preferences of each individual person over the set of available choices into a final decision made for the group. This may seem simple at first glance. However, there are many different ways of making social choices and the process can become incredibly complicated very quickly, especially as the number of people, the variety of alternatives considered, and the diversity of opinion in the group increase.
Sometimes, the processes by which decisions are made are quite simple. One very simple mechanism for making social choices is called a "dictatorship." This means that one person makes choices on behalf of the group. Another way to put it is that the social preference order is the same as the individual preference order of the dictator.
Sometimes, the process for making a social choice is quite complicated, as is often the case in the United States. Our national social choices are often made by the federal legislative process which involves--among other things-- electing 435 members of the House of Representatives, 100 Senators, and one president, and an elaborate committee system to translate the preferences of 300 million Americans into single choices over this or that policy.
Whether the process is simple or elaborate, though, the process matters. The rules or institutions that govern the alternatives that groups consider and how preferences over those alternatives are aggregated influence and often determine the outcome of the social choice. In other words, how a social choice gets made often determines which choice is made.
To underscore this point, I am going to ask you to try and read an article by Charles Plott and Michael Levine that was published in 1977 in the Virginia Law Review. The paper (here--you must be using an on-campus network to access) is called "The Flying Club." It is famous because it tells the story of how one author (Levine) conspired with the other (Plott) to lead his airplane club to make a social choice that reflected his personal preferences over which kinds of airplanes to buy. It is important because it explains--in language that is about as clear as any academic paper can be--how parts of making social choices that seem innocent and inconsequential--the order in which alternative are considered, whether alternatives are considered two or three at a time, etc.--can change the outcome of a social choice process.
