From Impact to Inclusion: A Dual-Axis Evaluation of Voting Rules in Participatory Budgets

Maharjan et al. (2024) and Yang et al. (2023) both point to a missing link: while we have some measures of impact for winning projects and some measures of proportionality/inclusion, there’s little theory or empirical work combining these. This research would create a dual-axis “impact-inclusion” evaluation metric—tracking not just which groups are represented or which projects win, but also the broader social impact (e.g., on welfare, infrastructure, culture) of those wins. By applying this framework to datasets from participatory budgeting and municipal elections, the research would reveal whether certain voting rules systematically privilege “high impact” projects at the cost of minority representation (or vice versa), and propose hybrid rules that optimize both axes. This would move the field beyond binary fairness-versus-impact debates to richer, multi-dimensional assessments of voting system performance.

References:

1. Fair voting outcomes with impact and novelty compromises? Unravelling biases in electing participatory budgeting winners. Sajan Maharjan, Srijoni Majumdar, Evangelos Pournaras (2024). Philosophical Transactions.
2. Designing Digital Voting Systems for Citizens: Achieving Fairness and Legitimacy in Participatory Budgeting. Joshua C. Yang, C. I. Hausladen, Dominik Peters, Evangelos Pournaras, Regula Hnggli Fricker, Dirk Helbing (2023). Digit. Gov. Res. Pract..
3. Designing Digital Voting Systems for Citizens: Achieving Fairness and Legitimacy in Digital Participatory Budgeting. Joshua C. Yang, C. I. Hausladen, Dominik Peters, Evangelos Pournaras, Regula Haenggli Fricker, Dirk Helbing (2023). arXiv.org.