Rationalizability and similar notions of consistency have proved to be highly problematic in the context of social choice, as witnessed by a range of impossibility results, among which Arrow[modifier letter apostrophe]s is the most prominent. We propose to rationalize choice functions by...

We propose a systematic methodology for defining tournament solutions as extensions of maximality. The central concepts of this methodology are maximal qualified subsets and minimal stable sets. We thus obtain an infinite hierarchy of tournament solutions, encompassing the top cycle, the...