Counting the Many

Melissa Schwartzberg is an Associate Professor of Politics at New York University. She previously taught at George Washington University and Columbia University. She received her AB from Washington University, St Louis in 1996, and her PhD in 2002 from New York University. She is the author of Democracy and Legal Change (Cambridge, 2007) and of articles in leading journals including the American Political Science Review, the Journal of the History of Ideas, the Journal of Political Philosophy, and Political Theory. She is a 2013 recipient of the Mellon New Directions Fellowship. From 2010 to 2013, she served as the co-president of the Association for Political Theory.

“As she did in her previous, remarkable book on entrenchment provisions, Democracy and Legal Change, Melissa Schwartzberg, in Counting the Many, shows us how little we really understand a widespread practice in modem constitutionalism, in this case supermajoritarianism. Combining sharp rational analysis and subtle historical research, Schwartzberg illuminates the origins of vote counting and the decision rules that developed along with it. Normatively, the book is courageous: Schwartzberg demonstrates in no uncertain terms that there is no justification compatible with democratic principles for supermajority requirements. Historically, the book is revelatory in several respects: for instance, Schwartzberg informs us that ‘one person, one vote’ was originally an aristocratic, not democratic, principle. Counting the Many is an excellent book that will enjoy an enormous scholarly and, hopefully, political impact.” – John P. McCormick, Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago

• 1. Introduction; Part I. A Remedy for the Problems of Unanimity: 2. Prelude: acclamation and aggregation in the ancient world; 3. Unanimitas to a two-thirds vote: medieval origins of supermajority rule; 4. Unanimity and supermajority rule in eighteenth-century France; Part II. A Remedy for the Problems of Majority Rule: 5. Equality, majority rule, and supermajorities; 6. Constitutionalism without supermajorities; 7. Constitutionalism under complex majoritarianism; 8. Conclusion.