Professor Iain McLean discusses how to choose a pope

Iain McLean featured in an article for the Los Angeles Times (14 March) entitled Selection of pope offers a study in social choice theory.

The article begins:

"What if we chose the pope by rock, paper, scissors?

To scholars such as Iain McLean, that’s a real mathematical and sociological question, and it isn’t as far from the choosing of a pope as you might think."

It goes on to cite Iain's analysis on the history of papal nominations, and references a paper from 1998 that Iain and Josep Colomer, a political scientist at Barcelona University, published entitled 'Electing Popes: Approval Balloting and Qualified-Majority Rule'. The paper focuses particularly on Pope Celestine V, the only pope prior to Pope Benedict XVI to resign his papacy.

You can follow this link to read the full article.

You can also read Iain and Josep's paper.

Iain has also written further on this, in a blog article for Politics in Spires.