The Dominance, Covering and Supercovering Relations in the Context of Multiple Partially Specified Reciprocal Relations

Abstract

The problem of ranking different candidates or alternatives according to the preferences of different voters or experts is a common study subject in the fields of social choice theory and preference modelling. Whereas the former field normally restricts its attention to preferences given in the form of rankings (with ties), the latter field embraces the use of (partially specified) reciprocal relations. In this contribution, we study the notions of dominance relation, covering relation and supercovering relation, which are widely studied in the setting in which we are dealing with rankings (with ties), and adapt them to the setting in which we are dealing with partially specified reciprocal relations by using a tool similar to stochastic dominance.