Introduction

We shall return to the problem of manipulation by introduction of new issues and dimensions. Meanwhile, we shall examine the remaining published and developed anecdotes of cycling I have been able to find in the political science literature, beginning with Riker's in this chapter, followed by others' claims in the next chapter. In the first case, Riker detects a cycle in the deliberations of the Convention that crafted the US Constitution. The question was how best to select the executive of the new regime. Riker believes there was a cycle among three alternatives – for the national legislature to select the executive by joint ballot of the two chambers, the same but by separate ballot of the two chambers, and selection by electors in the states – and hence that the final outcome was arbitrarily decided by the more intense will to win of the faction that favored selection by electors. I show that Riker's purported cycle arises from a failure to distinguish among similar but not identical alternatives. I argue that it is a more plausible interpretation of the record to distinguish among similar alternatives, and if this is done, the reversal, tie, and cycle alleged by Riker vanish. The Convention, supposedly deadlocked in cyclic indeterminacy on the question of the selection of the executive, appointed a committee to resolve the question overwhelmingly dominated by supporters of selection by electors.