Analysis of the nature of voting is fundamental to an understanding of the nature and value of democracy. Three questions ought to be distinguished concerning voting. First, how are we to conceive of the activity of voting? What is its nature? Second, what is it that people aim at when they vote? What are the grounds on which people vote, the reasons with which they justify their vote? And third, what ought people to aim at when they vote? What are (...) the relevant grounds for voting in one way or another? These last are explicitly normative questions. At times individuals vote on the basis of concerns which are not appropriate to the issues involved. The first question is not a question of psychology or of value; it is a metaphysical question. What is the nature of voting? How is it possible to count votes? Two answers are widely given in the literature. The first is that voting consists in the expression of preference. On this kind of view, either a vote is a preference or it is a fairly direct and unambiguous expression of the preference of the voter. (shrink)

The fact that most of us are ignorant on politically relevant matters presents a problem for democracy. In light of this, some have suggested that we should impose epistemic constraints on democratic participation, and specifically that the franchise be restricted along competency lines – a suggestion that in turn runs the risk of violating a long-standing condition on political legitimacy to the effect that legitimate political arrangements cannot be open to reasonable objections. The present paper therefore outlines a way to (...) solve the problem of public ignorance without restricting the franchise. The proposal involves filtering the electoral input of a universal franchise through a statistical model that simulates what the public's political preferences would have been, had they been informed on politically relevant matters. The result is modelled democracy. A case is made that such democracy both solves the problem of public ignorance and satisfies the aforementioned condition on legitimacy. (shrink)

Many writers claim that democratic government rests on a principled commitment to the ideal of political equality. The ideal of political equality holds that political institutions ought to be arranged so that they distribute political standing equally to all citizens. I reject this common view. I argue that the ideal of political equality, under its most plausible characterizations, lacks independent justificatory force. By casting doubt on the ideal of political equality, I provide indirect support for the claim that democratic government (...) is only instrumentally justified. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe participants in this symposium raise many insightful criticisms and reservations about my book Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government Is Smarter. But none substantially undermine its main thesis: that rational political ignorance and rational irrationality are major problems for democracy that are best addressed by limiting and decentralizing government power. Part I of this reply addresses criticisms of my analysis of the problem of political ignorance and its causes. Part II assesses challenges to my proposed solution.

Recent political developments cast doubt on the wisdom of democratic decision-making. Brexit, the Colombian people's (initial) rejection of peace with the FARC, and the election of Donald Trump suggest that the time is right to explore alternatives to democracy. In this essay, I describe and defend the epistocratic system of government which is, given current theoretical and empirical knowledge, most likely to produce optimal political outcomes—or at least better outcomes than democracy produces. To wit, we should expand the suffrage as (...) wide as possible and weight citizens’ votes in accordance with their competence. As it turns out, the optimal system is closely related to J. S. Mill's plural voting proposal. I also explain how voters’ competences can be precisely determined, without reference to an objective standard of correctness and without generating invidious comparisons between voters. (shrink)

Jason Brennan has argued that democracy is intrinsically unjust, for it grants voting power to politically incompetent individuals, thus exposing people to an undue risk of harm. He claims democracy should be replaced by epistocracy, i.e., the rule of the knowers. In this paper, I show that his argument fails. First, Brennan mistakes voters’ competence for voters’ trustworthiness. Second, despite Brennan's claim to the contrary, an epistocracy may not reduce people’s exposure to an undue risk of harm. Third, Brennan overlooks (...) the fact that citizens are not equally affected by ‘bad voting.’ Fourth, far from being a defence of libertarian ideals, Brennan's argument supports paternalism. (shrink)

A widely held picture in political science emphasizes the cognitive shortcomings of us citizens. We’re ignorant. We don’t know much about politics. We’re irrational. We bend the evidence to show our side in the best possible light. And we’re malleable. We let political elites determine our political opinions. This paper is about why these shortcomings matter to democratic values. Some think that democracy’s value consists entirely in its connection to equality. But the import of these shortcomings, I argue, cannot be (...) explained in purely egalitarian terms. To explain it, we must instead think of democracy’s value partly in terms of collective autonomy. Our ignorance and irrationality undermine the epistemic conditions for realizing this kind of autonomy. They stop us knowing the outcomes of our political choices. Our irrationality and malleability undermine the independence conditions for realizing such autonomy. They mean our political choices are subject to problematic kinds of interpersonal influence. Thus, at root, the import of the widely held picture is that, if accurate, it closes off this critical aspect of democracy’s value. (shrink)

What is the moral value of formal democratic decision-making? Egalitarian accounts of democracy provide a powerful answer to this question. They present formal democratic procedures as a way for a society of equals to arrive at collective decisions in a transparent and mutually acceptable manner. More specifically, such procedures ensure and publicly affirm that all members of a political community, in their capacity as autonomous actors, are treated as equals who are able and have a right to participate in collective (...) decision-making. Recently, a number of authors have raised what I describe as the ‘no impact’ objection. This objection focuses on the egalitarian emphasis on autonomy to cast doubt on the moral value of formal democratic procedures. It holds that individual participation in formal democratic decision-making has no impact on the eventual result, and therefore cannot be understood as an exercise in autonomy. Consequently, the ‘no impact’ objection claims that the moral value of formal democracy cannot be explained with reference to an egalitarian ideal of ‘rule by the people’. In this article, I refute this objection by complementing an egalitarian account of democracy with an account of basic autonomy. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that electoral representative democracy is better—along a number of different normative dimensions—than any other alternative lawmaking political arrangement. It is not typically seen as much of a competition: it is also widely accepted that the only legitimate alternative to electoral representative democracy is some form of direct democracy, but direct democracy—we are told—would lead to bad policy. This article makes the case that there is a legitimate alternative system—one that uses lotteries, not elections, to select political (...) officials— that would be better than electoral representative democracy. (shrink)

The democratic egalitarian ideal requires that everyone should enjoy equal power over the world through voting. If it is improper to vote twice in the same election, why should it be permissible for dual citizens to vote in two different places? Several possible excuses are considered and rejected.

Why should a citizen vote? There are two ways to interpret this question: in a prudential sense, and in a moral sense. Under the first interpretation, the question asks why—or under what circumstances—it is in a citizen's self-interest to vote. Under the second interpretation, it asks what moral reasons citizens have for voting. I shall mainly try to answer the moral version of the question, but my answer may also, in some circumstances, bear on the prudential question. Before proceeding to (...) my own approach, let me briefly survey alternatives in the field. (shrink)

Democratic theorists often place deliberative innovations such as citizen's panels, consensus conferences, planning cells, and deliberative polls at the center of their hopes for deliberative democratization. In light of experience to date, the authors chart the ways in which such mini-publics may have an impact in the “macro” world of politics. Impact may come in the form of actually making policy, being taken up in the policy process, informing public debates, market-testing of proposals, legitimation of public policies, building confidence and (...) constituencies for policies, popular oversight, and resisting co-option. Exposing problems and failures is all too easy. The authors highlight cases of success on each of these dimensions. (shrink)