Voting for Centrality

In network science, centrality indices are used to determine important nodes by virtue of their position in a network. In social choice theory, voting rules are used to aggregate preferences of voters to determine the winners of an election. Exploiting parallels between these two fields, we propose a novel approach to define network centrality indices based on voting rules. Since formal properties of voting rules have been studied in much greater depth, this will not only lead to new applications of social choice theory but also facilitate a deeper understanding of centrality in networks.

Authors

• Ulrik Brandes
• Christian Laußmann Heinrich-Heine-Universität
• Jörg Rothe

Keywords

• Network Centrality
• Voting