Procedural Freedom of Choice

We analyze a new framework for ranking different procedures in terms of freedom of choice. We use the concept of game forms to model procedures as a structure of interaction of individuals. Sets of outcomes for a certain individual are represented by the individual's own perceptions of the social states that are generated by the interaction of all individuals. We condense the information given by a game form and by the perceptions of outcomes to two sets for each individual. First, there is the set of perceived outcomes the individual can actively determine and secondly, there is the set of perceived outcomes the individual can actively exclude from happening. We apply techniques that are known from the literature on ranking opportunity sets in terms of freedom of choice to these pairs of determination and exclusion sets for each individual. We propose different rankings of game forms in terms of procedural freedom and characterize some of them axiomatically. The model and the rankings are illustrated by classical examples from Game Theory and Social Choice Theory.