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On Keeping Touch with Reality and Failing to be Befuddled by Mathematics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Extract

Peter Morriss (see pp. 595–7) criticizes most applications of mathematically derived power indices, including mine and the response to my original Note. He uses uncomplimentary terms, implying that we are not only wrong but also fools for being wrong.

Type
Notes and Comments
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 Johnston, R. J., ‘The Conflict over Qualified Majority Voting in the European Union Council of Ministers: An Analysis of the UK Negotiating Stance Using Power Indices’, British Journal of Political Science, 25 (1995), 245–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Garrett, G. M., McLean, I. and Machover, M., ‘Power, Power Indices and Blocking Power: A Comment’, British Journal of Political Science, 25 (1995), 563–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Johnston, R. J., ‘Can Power be Reduced to a Quantitative Index–and If So, Which One? A Response to Garrett, McLean and Machover’, British Journal of Political Science, 25 (1995), 568–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Morriss, P., Power: A Philosophical Analysis (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987).Google Scholar

3 Morriss, , PowerGoogle Scholar, contains a cogent development of this case: see especially pp. 184–6.

4 For example, Johnston, R. J., ‘Political Geography and Political Power’, in Holler, M. J., ed., Power, Voting and Voting Power (Wurzburg: Physica-Verlag, 1981), pp. 289306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Morriss, , Power, p. 198.Google Scholar