Abstract
We study settings in which agents with incomplete
preferences need to make a collective decision. We
focus on a process of majority dynamics where issues
are addressed one at a time and undecided
agents follow the opinion of the majority. We assess
the effects of this process on various consensus
notions—such as the Condorcet winner—and show
that in the worst case, myopic adherence to the majority
damages existing consensus; yet, simulation
experiments indicate that the damage is often mild.
We also examine scenarios where the chair of the
decision process can control the existence (or the
identity) of consensus, by determining the order in
which the issues are discussed.
Keywords
- Agent-based and Multi-agent Systems: Computational Social Choice
