  We examine the Liouvillian approach to the quantum Hall plateau transition,
as introduced recently by Sinova, Meden, and Girvin [Phys. Rev. B {\bf 62},
2008 (2000)] and developed by Moore, Sinova and Zee [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 87},
046801 (2001)]. We show that, despite appearances to the contrary, the
Liouvillian approach is not specific to the quantum mechanics of particles
moving in a single Landau level: we formulate it for a general disordered
single-particle Hamiltonian. We next examine the relationship between
Liouvillian perturbation theory and conventional calculations of
disorder-averaged products of Green functions and show that each term in
Liouvillian perturbation theory corresponds to a specific contribution to the
two-particle Green function. As a consequence, any Liouvillian approximation
scheme may be re-expressed in the language of Green functions. We illustrate
these ideas by applying Liouvillian methods, including their extension to $N_L
> 1$ Liouvillian flavors, to random matrix ensembles, using numerical
calculations for small integer $N_L$ and an analytic analysis for large $N_L$.
We find that behavior at $N_L > 1$ is different in qualitative ways from that
at $N_L=1$. In particular, the $N_L = \infty$ limit expressed using Green
functions generates a pathological approximation, in which two-particle
correlation functions fail to factorize correctly at large separations of their
energy, and exhibit spurious singularities inside the band of random matrix
energy levels. We also consider the large $N_L$ treatment of the quantum Hall
plateau transition, showing that the same undesirable features are present
there, too.
