The Problem of the Right Distribution of Voting Power

The principle of rule by the people is one of the basic tenets of democracy. At the heart of this tenet is the idea that everybody should have a say in the decision making taking place in the name of the people. The “say” in ancient polis was simply the right — indeed the duty — of being present in the meetings where public affairs were being discussed and decided upon. The principle of aggregating the individual wills into a collective one was in a way an obvious one. However, in the advent of the representational institutions the aggregation problem gained importance. The reason is clear: the representatives must necessarily be representatives of at least some groups as one of the main desiderata of representative institutions is to decrease the size of the decision making body. On the assumption that the citizens can be partitioned into mutually exclusive and exhaustive groups in a way that somehow “fairly” reflects their individual wills, one can ask: what is the right or just way of designing a collective decision making body so that the will of the people finds its expression in the workings of the body in the most faithful fashion?