Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T21:30:20.207Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Representative Democracy as Defensible Epistocracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2019

DIMITRI LANDA Open the ORCID record for DIMITRI LANDA [Opens in a new window]  and
RYAN PEVNICK Open the ORCID record for RYAN PEVNICK [Opens in a new window]
DIMITRI LANDA*
Affiliation:
New York University
RYAN PEVNICK*
Affiliation:
New York University
*
*Dimitri Landa, Professor, Department of Politics, New York University, [email protected].
†Ryan Pevnick, Associate Professor, Department of Politics, New York University, [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Epistocratic arrangements are widely rejected because there will be reasonable disagreement about which citizens count as epistemically superior and an epistemically superior subset of citizens may be biased in ways that undermine their ability to generate superior political outcomes. The upshot is supposed to be that systems of democratic government are preferable because they refuse to allow some citizens to rule over others. We show that this approach is doubly unsatisfactory: although representative democracy cannot be defended as a form of government that prevents some citizens from ruling over others, it can be defended as a special form of epistocracy. We demonstrate that well-designed representative democracies can, through treatment and selection mechanisms, bring forth an especially competent set of individuals to make public policy, even while circumventing the standard objections to epistocratic rule. This has implications for the justification of representative democracy and questions of institutional design.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 114 , Issue 1 , February 2020 , pp. 1 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

We are grateful to Bernard Manin for helpful comments. Additionally, participants in a seminar at the University of Virginia provided useful discussion of an earlier version. Finally, we appreciate the work of the journal’s reviewers, who helped us to improve the manuscript.

References

REFERENCES

Alt, James, Bueno de Mesquita, Ethan, and Rose, Shanna. 2011. “Disentangling Accountability and Competence in Elections: Evidence from US Term Limits.” The Journal of Politics 73 (1): 171–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anesi, Vincent, and Buisseret, Peter. 2019. “Making Elections Work: Accountability with Selection and Control.” Working Paper. Retrieved May 22, 2019. http://www.peterbuisseret.com/research.html.Google Scholar
Ashworth, Scott. 2006. “Campaign Finance and Voter Welfare with Entrenched Incumbents.” American Political Science Review 100 (1): 55–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashworth, Scott, and Bueno de Mesquita, Ethan. 2017. “Unified versus Divided Political Authority.” The Journal of Politics 79 (4): 1372–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashworth, Scott, and Bueno de Mesquita, Ethan. 2008. “Electoral Selection, Strategic Challenger Entry, and the Incumbency Advantage.” The Journal of Politics 70 (4): 1006–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beerbohm, Eric. 2012. In Our Name. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Beitz, Charles R. 1989. Political Equality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Brennan, Geoff. 1989. “Politics with Romance: Towards a Theory of Democratic Socialism.” In The Good Polity. Normative Analysis of the State, eds. Hamlin, Alan and Pettit, Philip. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 49–66.Google Scholar
Brennan, Jason. 2011. “The Right to a Competent Electorate.” The Philosophical Quarterly 61 (245): 700–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brennan, Jason. 2016. Against Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Brennan, Jason. 2018. “Does the Demographic Objection to Epistocracy Succeed?” Res Publica 24 (1): 53–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caplan, Bryan. 2011. The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, New Edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christiano, Thomas. 1996. The Rule of Many. Boulder, CO: WestviewPress.Google Scholar
Christiano, Thomas. 2008. The Constitution of Equality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christiano, Thomas. 2017. Review of Against Democracy by Jason Brennan. Notre Dame Philosophical Review May 19. Retrieved May 25, 2019. https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/against-democracy/.Google Scholar
Cohen, Joshua. 1986. “An Epistemic Conception of Democracy.” Ethics 97 (1): 26–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, Gary W. 1997. Making Votes Count: Strategic Coordination in the World’s Electoral Systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Estlund, David. 2008. Democratic Authority. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Fox, Justin. 2007. “Government Transparency and Policymaking.” Public Choice 131 (1–2): 23–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox, Justin, and Van Weelden, Richard. 2010. “Partisanship and the Effectiveness of Oversight.” Journal of Public Economics 94 (9–10): 674–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodin, Robert E., and Spiekermann, Kai. 2018. An Epistemic Theory of Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, Sanford C., Huber, Gregory A., and Landa, Dimitri. 2007. “Challenger Entry and Voter Learning.” American Political Science Review 101 (2): 303–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, Sanford C., and Landa, Dimitri. 2009. “Do the Advantages of Incumbency Advantage Incumbents?” The Journal of Politics 71 (4): 1481–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guerrero, Alexander A. 2014. “Against Elections: The Lottocratic Alternative.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 42 (2): 132–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guraieb, Marlene, and Landa, Dimitri. 2016. “Institutional Trust and Political Authority.” 111th APSA Annual Conference, San Francisco.Google Scholar
Hampton, Jean. 1994. “Democracy and the Rule of Law.” In NOMOS: The Rule of Law, ed. Shapiro, Ian. New York, NY: New York University Press, 13–44.Google Scholar
Ingham, Sean. 2019. Rule by Multiple Majorities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hong, Lu, and Page, Scott E.. 2004. “Groups of Diverse Problem Solvers Can Outperform Groups of High-Ability Problem Solvers.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 101 (46): 16385–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kolodny, Niko. 2014. “Rule Over None II.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 42 (4): 287–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landa, Dimitri, and Le Bihan, Patrick. 2018. “Does Unbundling Policy Authority Improve Accountability?” The Journal of Politics 80 (3): 933–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landemore, Helene. 2012. Democratic Reason. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Li, Christopher M.. 2019. “Indirect Accountability of Political Appointees” Working Paper. Available at https://sites.google.com/a/u.northwestern.edu/christopher-li/home-1/research. Accessed 19 August 2019.Google Scholar
Lijphart, Arend. 1997. “Unequal Participation: Democracy’s Unresolved Dilemma Presidential Address, American Political Science Association, 1996.” American Political Science Review 91 (1): 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
López-Guerra, Claudio. 2011. “The Enfranchisement Lottery.” Politics, Philosophy & Economics 10 (2): 211–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manin, Bernard. 1997. The Principles of Representative Government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mansbridge, Jane. 2009. “A ‘Selection Model’ of Political Representation.” The Journal of Political Philosophy 17 (4): 369–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myerson, Roger B. 1999. “Theoretical Comparisons of Electoral Systems.” European Economic Review 43 (4–6): 671–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parvin, Phil. 2018a. “Democracy without Participation: A New Politics for a Disengaged Era.” Res Publica 24 (1): 31–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parvin, Phil. 2018b. “Representing the People: British Democracy in an Age of Political Ignorance.” Political Studies Review 16 (4): 265–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Powell, G. Bingham Jr 2000. Elections as Instruments of Democracy: Majoritarian and Proportional Visions. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1999. A Theory of Justice, Revised edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sieyes, Emmanuel. 2003. Sieyes: Political Writings. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.Google Scholar
Somin, Ilya. 2016. Democracy and Political Ignorance. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Tavits, Margit. 2007. “Clarity of Responsibility and Corruption.” American Journal of Political Science 51 (1): 218–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zaller, John R. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.