The CITIC of UDC held today the first breakfast of the year in the TIC Talk series, featuring the talk entitled “Is our electoral system unfair? A game-theory perspective”, delivered by researcher Alicia Mascareñas.

During her presentation, the UDC researcher addressed one of the key aspects of collective decision-making processes: the difference between the formal weight of a vote and the real influence exerted by each participant. Using game-theory tools, she explained how so-called power indices make it possible to measure that influence more rigorously, moving beyond simplistic interpretations based solely on vote counts.

The speaker presented a new index, called the Felsenthal power index with unions, which extends the classic index introduced by Felsenthal by incorporating existing affinities among players, whether ideological, personal or strategic. This approach enables a more realistic capture of the power dynamics that emerge in collective decision-making contexts.

In addition, she discussed two sets of properties that mathematically characterise this new index, facilitating a more detailed understanding of its behaviour. As a practical application, Alicia Mascareñas demonstrated its use in analysing the distribution of power among member countries of the International Monetary Fund, highlighting how strategic alliances can significantly alter the balance of power.