Formal Approaches to Social Procedures
Updated 2026-09-10
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
Voting, auctions, matching, inheritance division, and distributive justice are social procedures with an algorithmic component; the formal approach studies them as formalizable algorithms that can be analyzed and redesigned, in order to improve their fairness and efficiency. Social software is the name for this research program, and game theory, logic, and complexity theory supply its main analytical tools.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Procedure modeling: abstract procedures such as voting and auctions into a mapping from inputs to outputs. - Incentive analysis: analyze the strategic space under the rules and anticipate manipulation. - Rule redesign: redesign allocation rules in light of fairness and efficiency goals.
Anchor fast decisions
A social procedure can be abstracted into a mapping from inputs, the participants' preferences and claims, to outputs, the allocation result, and so admits algorithmic analysis. Game theory characterizes the strategic incentives under the rules, logic characterizes the conditions of public information, and complexity theory characterizes manipulability; together they explain why a procedure yields fair outcomes.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- plato.stanford.eduhttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/social-procedures/verified
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