Modelling and analysing parliamentary law with Alloy

Details

Supervisors

Pecheur, Charles

Faculty

Ecole polytechnique de Louvain

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences informatiques

Abstract

Assemblies ranging from small non-profit organizations to state parliamentary assemblies rely on the rigorousness of the rules and protocols suggested by the Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised (RONR) to take important decisions. In the latter case these protocols turn out being a decisive tool at the very heart of the democracy of nations. The Rules Of Order as described in the RONR appear under the form of a collection of sentences formulated in the natural language. These sentences are aimed at achieving an abstract, equally natural-language-formulated description of goals. The focus of this work is to produce a formal specification out of the study of the RONR using the MIT-implemented Alloy modelling tool and its modelling language based on relational algebra and first-order logic. The problem to be solved is thus the construction of a formal object that is best capable of revealing on one hand and verifying on the other the interesting properties of the Rules of Order with respect to its goals. Proceeding to a first formal analysis of this renowned collection of rules whose constitution was made to some extent along empirical and historical developments is in this regard a task that makes sense and that can come upon interesting results regarding the extent to which the protocols formally succeed to fulfil the theoretical goals of a fair and efficient debate in order to get business done within a decisional assembly.