Balinski's Majority Judgment: A Good Alternative for the Netherlands?

Social Choice Theory teaches us that the Majority Rule currently used in most democracies, including The Netherlands, is prone to certain paradoxes and causes a major loss of information. This holds in particular for political elections. Alternative voting methods have been developed to solve this problem. Balinski and Laraki’s method of Majority Judgment, based on evaluations instead of individual preferences, seems closest to aggregating individual opinions into a social or common ranking of the alternatives in a satisfactory way. This thesis discusses whether Majority Judgment is a feasible and desirable alternative for the Dutch political system.