This paper discusses an aspect of computational complexity in social choice theory. We consider the problem of designing voting rules, which is formulated in terms of simple games. We prove that it is an NP-complete problem to decide whether a given simple game is stable, or not.

The theory of computation and automata has occasionally aroused some interest among political scientists. The article outlines some early applications, although the main emphasis is on the most recent ones. We concentrate on the applications to bargaining and negotiation procedures. It is argued...