ABSTRACT
The period of globalization has seen more and more international and regional organization. This chapter identifies a few principles guiding the distribution of voting power within international and regional organizations. The power index method has become highly popular in recent years, as it allows for the derivation of unique solution numbers to highly complex games with several players having different voting weights. The emphasis is upon the interpretation of the basic parameters that the power index method calculates, and not the calculations themselves. In rational choice the key principle for analyzing group decision-making is the Knut Wicksell principle of unanimity. The calculus in the Shapley-Shubik index is conceived in an alternative manner. One may conceive of the following alternative interpretations of the key parameters in the voting power framework. They represent: relative frequencies in a very long run of plays – an empirical interpretation; and capacities or potentialities – the constitutional interpretation.
