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Amartya Sen has recently suggested that certain issues which arise in the application of the capability approach can be seen in terms of social choice. This article explores certain connections and tensions between Kenneth Arrow's celebrated discussion of social choice and the capability approach while focusing on one central link: pluralism. Given the variety of values people hold, substantive issues which arise in the application of the capability approach can be seen as social choice problems. Seeing them in this way helps to explain some of Sen's suggestions about applying the approach in the light of an analogue of Arrow's theorem. However, it also poses a potential problem because of the focus on preferences in social choice theory, given that the capability approach is motivated in part by problems which `adaptive preferences' raise for `utility'-based views. In this article, it is argued that Sen's writings about public reasoning allow him to address this problem to some degree. The reading underlying this argument clarifies issues about the relationship between the individual and society in his approach. It also illuminates the extent of Sen's debt to John Rawls's writings on `public reason', while clarifying some points on which Sen and Rawls diverge.

Citation totals from the Social Science Citation Index, 1966-1988, are used to determine which of several books & articles have been cited often enough to be called "classic" in terms of their influence among "social choice" scholars. The term "social choice" is used broadly, to include not only works by K. J. Arrow & A. Sen, but also Duncan Black, Anthony Downs, James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, Mancur Olson, William Niskanen, & others from modern "public choice." Specifically researched were books by J. Rawls, R. Farguahrson, P. Fishburn, R. Luce, H. Raiffa, & important articles by Ronald Coase, A. Gibbard, Ann Kruger, Sam Peltzman, Paul Samuelson, Mark Satterthwaite, George Stigler, Charles Tiebout, & Gordon Tullock. Some have received hundreds of cites over their lives, while others have received few. In 1987, these authors' works were collectively cited 1,189 times in 450+ different journals. The citation itself was quite eclectic, including, in addition to large numbers in the economics, political science, politics, & law literature, journals from business, environmental studies, health, international relations, philosophy, planning, psychology, public administration, science, sociology, interdisciplinary social science, & urban studies. 3 Tables, 28 References. AA

This introductory textbook on social choice theory makes the social choice theoretic framework and its main results, that have a direct bearing on the discourses on electoral rules and policy evaluation, accessible to a larger audience. The text is essentially self-contained. No previous knowledge of mathematical logic or relational algebra is assumed. Whatever technical prerequisites are needed, are developed in the text itself. Although the text is at an introductory level, there has been no compromise on rigor. Unlike most introductory books, the relevant proofs are not omitted; rather, they have been explained in detail. The text has a large number of examples so that the concepts and results become clear to the reader. There is a large number of exercises with full solutions provided at the end of the text, so that the reader can check her/his understanding of the material.

"Originally published in 1951, Social Choice and Individual Values introduced "Arrow's Impossibility Theorem" and founded the field of social choice theory in economics and political science. This new edition, including a new foreword by Nobel laureate Eric Maskin, reintroduces Arrow's seminal book to a new generation of students and researchers."--Provided by publisher.

Wulf Gaertner provides a comprehensive account of an important and complex issue within social choice theory: how to establish a social welfare function while restricting the spectrum of individual preferences in a sensible way. Gaertner's starting point is K. J. Arrow's famous 'Impossibility Theorem', which showed that no welfare function could exist if an unrestricted domain of preferences is to be satisfied together with some other appealing conditions. A number of leading economists have tried to provide avenues out of this 'impossibility' by restricting the variety of preferences: here, Gaertner provides a clear and detailed account, using standardized mathematical notation, of well over forty theorems associated with domain conditions. Domain Conditions in Social Choice Theory will be an essential addition to the library of social choice theory for scholars and their advanced graduate students