Mathematics Atlas

How Proof Is Made
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Theorem

McKelvey-Schofield Chaos Theorem

Game Theory

The McKelvey-Schofield chaos theorem is a result in social choice theory stating that when political preferences are defined over a policy space with more than one dimension, decisions made by majority rule become unstable. In most such settings there's no Condorcet winner, and any outcome can be reached from any starting point through some sequence of votes, so the order in which options are put to a vote can be used to steer the process toward almost any result. Richard McKelvey proved an early version of the theorem in 1976 for preferences based on Euclidean distance, Norman Schofield proved a further version in 1978 for differentiable preferences, and the result is often read as showing that Arrow's impossibility theorem keeps binding once preferences are allowed more than one dimension, unlike the single-dimensional case covered by the median voter theorem.

Facts
Statement
If preferences are defined over a multidimensional policy space, then choosing policies by majority rule is unstable: there is in most cases no Condorcet winner, and any policy can be enacted through a sequence of votes regardless of the original policy. 1
Proof Year
1976 1
Classification
Statement Form
Impossibility Theorem 1
Connections

Has Statement Form

Entity-backed identity for the statement-form enum value this theorem already carries, resolved to a mathematics concept by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The statement-form fact itself stays on the theorem unchanged.

Sources
1. McKelvey-Schofield chaos theorem, Wikipedia
  • Lead paragraph, second and third sentences
    It states that if preferences are defined over a multidimensional policy space, then choosing policies using majority rule is unstable. There will in most cases be no Condorcet winner and any policy can be enacted through a sequence of votes, regardless of the original policy.
  • Second paragraph, second sentence
    A version of the theorem was first proved by Richard McKelvey in 1976, for preferences based on Euclidean distances in R^n.
View the Source
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.