VPP is headed by an active Board of Advisors, world experts in the modern development of social choice theory, Sir Michael Dummett |and the Nobel Laureates Kenneth Arrow| and Amartya Sen|.
The VPP Directors have substantial track records of research and acknowledged reputations in the field of social choice theory, with particular emphasis on voting power analysis and voting procedures, together with internationally recognised expertise in the publicity and dissemination of the results of academic research to both specialist and non-specialist audiences.
Rudolf Fara (Philosophy/Applications/Media)
Rudolf Fara is CPNSS Fellow and Visiting Research Fellow of LSE. He co-founded in the U.K. and U.S.A. Prismatron Productions, the first specialist publisher of academic media on computing, statistics and operations research. In 1993 Fara returned to philosophy as Trustee and Executive Director of the charity Philosophy in Britain|, and shortly afterwards founded Philosophy International|, publisher of the internationally acclaimed archival video series on the work of the most influential living philosophers. Productions include: In Conversation: Sir Peter Strawson|, In Conversation: W. V. Quine| and In Conversation: Donald Davidson|.
Dan S. Felsenthal (Political Science/Social Choice)
Dan S. Felsenthal| is emeritus professor at the University of Haifa and Research Associate of CPNSS at LSE. He has worked and written papers and books on voting theory and voting behaviour, as well as on various applications of game theory to politics. In the 1990s he turned to investigating various topics on voting power in collaboration with Moshé Machover. They have published extensively in this area, including a book, The Measurement of Voting Power: Theory and Practice, Problems and Paradoxes. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 1998.
Dennis Leech (Economics/Computation/Algorithms)
Dennis Leech| is Professor of Economics at Warwick University and Research Associate of CPNSS at LSE. His work has addressed major methodological problems: the comparative empirical performance of rival power indices; computing power indices for large voting bodies, for which he has developed efficient algorithms (www.warwick.ac.uk/~ecaae|); the 'inverse' problem of finding voting weights to achieve a given distribution of voting power; theoretical questions of the relation between voting power of members and the existence of party blocs in a legislature. His applied work includes studies of the EU council and the IMF. He has recently given evidence to the European Parliament on IMF reform.
Moshé Machover (Logic/Mathematics/Social Choice)
Moshé Machover| was born in Tel-Aviv, studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and taught mathematics there before coming to London University in 1968. He is professor emeritus at the Department of Philosophy, Kings College, London and CPNSS Fellow and Visiting Research Fellow, LSE. His earlier work was on mathematical logic and the foundations of mathematics. Since the early 1990s, he has worked mainly in the area of Social Choice in collaboration with Dan Felsenthal. Together they published a monograph, The Measurement of Voting Power: Theory and Practice, Problems and Paradoxes (1998), as well as many papers on this subject.
Maurice Salles (Economics/Social Choice/Procedures)
Maurice Salles| was born in a Lower Normandy village. He studied economics at the University of Caen and mathematics from books. He taught at Caen before becoming professor at the University of Nantes in 1979. In 1982, he returned to Caen as professor of economics where he now remains. His work is essentially in social choice and voting theory, including fuzzy social choice and cooperative games aspects of voting. Salles was one of the founding editors of the journal Social Choice and Welfare| in 1984 and has been the coordinating editor since. He is Secretary-Treasurer of The Society for Social Choice and Welfare| at Maison de la Recherche en Sciences Humaines (MRSH) in the University of Caen and Research Associate of CPNSS at LSE.