¹ For some previous proposals on weighted voting or weighted representation in a world assembly and the evaluation of such proposals, see Clark, Grenville and Sohn, Louis B., World Peace Through World Law (2nd ed. rev.; Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1962), pp. xix–xxiiGoogle Scholar; Dulles, John Foster, War or Peace (New York: Macmillan, 1950), pp. 191–194Google Scholar; Hutchins, Robert M. and others, Preliminary Draft for a World Constitution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 10–13Google Scholar; Patijn, C. L., “A Formula for Weighted Voting,” in Symbolae Verzijl (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1958), pp. 255–264Google Scholar; and Wilcox, Francis O. and Marcy, Carl M., Proposals for Changes in the United Nations (Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution, 1955), pp. 351–372Google Scholar. See also, Lorimer, James, “On the Application of the Principle of Relative, or Proportional, Equality to International Organization,” Edinburgh Royal Society Transactions, 1864–1867 (Vol. 24), pp. 557–571CrossRefGoogle Scholar; MacIntyre, Elizabeth, “Weighted Voting in International Organizations,” International Organization, 11 1954 (Vol. 8, No. 4), pp. 484–497CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Catherine Senf, “A Proposal for Weighting Votes in the U. N. Assembly,” and Sohn, Louis B., “The Role of the General Assembly and the Problem of Weighted Voting,” in Commission to Study the Organization of Peace, Charter Review Conference, Ninth Report and Papers Presented to the Commission (New York, 1955), pp. 107–129 and 77–106, respectivelyGoogle Scholar; and Wright, Quincy, “Representation in a World Legislature—Part II: Weighted Representation,” Common Cause, 09 1949 (Vol. 3, No. 2), pp. 72–81.Google Scholar

² Cleveland, Harlan, “The Evolution of Rising Responsibility,” International Organization, Summer 1965 (Vol. 19, No. 3), pp. 833 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³ The New York Times, 06 3, 1963.Google Scholar

⁴ See, for example, Inis, L. Claude Jr, ‘Implications and Questions for the Future,” International Organization, Summer 1965 (Vol. 19, No. 3), p. 843.Google Scholar

⁵ See, for example, the 1964 Republican Party platform, The New York, Times, 07 13, 1964.Google Scholar

⁶ United Nations Review, 01 1964 (Vol. 11, No. 1), pp. 41–42.Google Scholar

⁷ General Assembly Official Records … Sixth Committee (18th session), pp. 67–251.Google Scholar

⁸ For a discussion of the possibilities and limitations of this approach, see the author's article “Problems and Trends in the Composition of Nonplenary UN Organs,” International Organization, Winter 1965 (Vol. 19, No. 1), pp. 37–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹ For details, see Manno, Catherine Senf, “Majority Decisions and Minority Responses in the UN General Assembly,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 03 1966 (Vol. 10, No. 1), pp. 1–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and “Weighted Voting in the United Nations General Assembly: A Study of Feasibility and Methods” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The American University, 1964), Chapters V and VI.Google Scholar

¹⁰ The cutoff below which new programs would still be initiated by equal voting might, for example, be set at $1,000,000 or at one percent of the last regular budget total.

¹¹ General Assembly Resolution 1852 (XVII), December 19, 1962, specified population, contributions, and “the fact of Membership” as factors to determine the number of staff positions allotted to each state.

¹² Data in this article are based on the 1964 assessment scale for the III Members then assessed, plus assessments of .04 percent estimated by the author for two then new Member countries. Only slight changes would result from subsequent additions of Members and from the defection of Indonesia and the merger of Tanganyika and Zanzibar when these changes are reflected in new assessment scales. See the remarks on pp. 52–53 below concerning the effect of changing membership on the weights.

¹³ Quincy, Wright, Common Cause, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 72–81.Google Scholar

¹⁴ See footnote 12. Results are based on the 1964 assessment scale, which totals somewhat over 100 percent because of the admission of new Members after the 1962–1964 scale was originally adopted. Should weighted voting be introduced, it is assumed that weights in addition to the basic 1,000 would be assigned to new Members admitted between revisions of the assessment scale.

¹⁵ For readers interested in the derivation, the weight (number of votes) of the ith country (w_i) is computed from its assessment percent (x_i) by the following straight line formula:

where w_m is the specified minimum weight (say five) for countries with the minimum assessment of .04 percent. The value of c is determined by the condition that

¹⁶ The general formula in this case is

For different values of the parameters d and f, this gives a series of straight lines when plotted on semi-logarithmic paper. All those satisfying the condition that

pass through a pivotal point having as its ordinate the mean value of the weights (1,000 ÷113 = 8.85) and as its abscissa, the geometrical mean of the assessment percents, which is .149 percent.

¹⁷ Root weights are based on exponential progression and the general formula is

where h = .5 for square root weights and .33 for cube root weights. The value of g is determined by the condition that

The root formula cannot be directly solved to satisfy given minima. It is necessary to use trial values of h until one giving approximately the desired minimum is found.

¹⁸ They would show slight differences if computed as parts in 10,000. In practice it might be necessary to use the more exact weights adding up to 10,000 in order to minimize rounding errors.

¹⁹ It would be possible to make special provisions to encourage federation. For example, it might be specified that such a combination would retain the total of its separate votes for the first three years and not lose more than 10 percent per year thereafter until the new level was reached.

²⁰ Since each of 113 equal-voting countries has the equivalent of 8.85 votes out of a total of 1,000, it could be done by subtracting two votes from the 8.85 votes of the countries in any group making up a third of the membership and adding one vote to the 8.85 votes of each remaining Member.

²¹ It would probably not be necessary to change the present practice of simple majority decisions by equal voting in the main (whole) committees if the vote in plenary is subject to weighting. Committee voting is not governed by the Charter and therefore lends itself more readily to experimentation. Committee actions are taken with a view to the requirements in plenary (a two-thirds majority for important questions), and it rarely happens that a resolution adopted in committee fails of adoption in plenary.

²² Weighting might be applicable to some parts of a resolution (and therefore to the whole) while not being applicable to other parts voted separately. It might even be made optional at the request of any Member as is now the case with recorded votes. This would avoid the invocation of status differences among Members for the many Assembly actions which pass without contest. Mechanical voting can, of course, be adapted to provide for weighting. Space does not permit extended speculation upon these details.

²³ Etzioni, Amitai, “European Unification: A Strategy of Change,” World Politics, 10 1963 (Vol. 16, No. 1), pp. 32–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁴ For a criticism of orthodox political theory for failing to distinguish sharply the difference between power to take action and to prevent action, see Buchanan, James M. and Gordon, Tullock, The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962), pp. 252 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁵ For a definition of decision power and an illuminating analysis of the relation between voting rules and decision power, see Shapley, L. S. and Martin, Shubik, “A Method of Evaluating the Distribution of Power in a Committee System,” Legislative Behavior, Wahlke, John C. and Heinz, Eulau, ed. (Glencoe, III: Free Press, 1959), pp. 358–361.Google Scholar

²⁶ The double count idea is developed in some detail in Newfang, Oscar, World Government (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1942), pp. 102 ffGoogle Scholar. It was suggested for the UN Assembly by Dulles, John Foster, War or Peace, pp. 191–194Google Scholar. An illustrative proposal inspired by Mr. Dulles' suggestion appears in Wilcox, Francis O. and Marcy, Carl M., Proposals for Changes in the United Nations, pp. 368–372. In the latter, weights based on population and contributions are used for the second count. The weights have a spread of only five to one between maximum and minimum.Google Scholar

²⁷ For an excerpted text of the EEC Treaty of 1957, see Lawson, Ruth C. (ed.), International Regional Organizations: Constitutional Foundations (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1962), pp. 109–148Google Scholar. For a commentary on the strategic considerations involved, see Etzioni, , World Politics, Vol. 16, No. I, pp. 32–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁸ See Manno, , “Weighted Voting in the United Nations General Assembly,” Chapters III and VII and Appendix.Google Scholar

²⁹ For simplicity, the possibility of abstentions and absences is ignored in this article.

³⁰ In Table IV the “number of countries needed” for decisive coalitions at either end of the assessment scale adds up to 114, one more than the 113 countries included in this study. This results from the fact that there is always one pivotal country which must be included with the low assessment countries to give them the votes needed to win or with the high assessment countries to give them the votes needed to block (and vice versa). Similarly, the “percent of total UN population” in these coalitions adds up to more than 100 percent if the pivotal country has one percent or more of total population. The percent of total UN assessments for each pair of decisive coalitions adds up to more than 100 percent for this reason and because the total assessments of the 113 countries was 100.41 percent. (See footnote [c], Table III.)

³¹ See Lijphart, Arend, “The Analysis of Bloc Voting in the General Assembly: A Critique and a Proposal,” American Political Science Review, 12 1963 (Vol. 57, No. 4), pp. 906–917CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Rieselbach, Leroy N, “Quantitative Techniques for Studying Voting Behavior in the UN General Assembly,” International Organization, Spring 1960 (Vol. 14, No. 2), pp. 291–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³² The present study did not include a large-scale recomputation of what the results of past votes would have been with weighting. The weights suggested here are based on similar factors but different formulas than the Wainhouse study.

³³ In case of a separate membership of Nationalist China representing only Taiwan, this country would have a weight in the middle range.

³⁴ Some writers have argued from the facts of nuclear balance that the two superpowers should be equated. E.g., see Patijn, C. L. in Symbolae Verzijl, pp. 255–264.Google Scholar