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How can we accept ‘our’ decisions?: an experimental study on lottocracy, epistocracy, and electoral democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2024

Akito Yamaguchi Open the ORCID record for Akito Yamaguchi [Opens in a new window] ,
Masaki Hata Open the ORCID record for Masaki Hata [Opens in a new window]  and
Akira Inoue Open the ORCID record for Akira Inoue [Opens in a new window]
Akito Yamaguchi*
Affiliation:
Department of Law and Politics, Graduate School of Law, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan
Masaki Hata
Affiliation:
Faculty of Information Technology and Social Sciences, Osaka University of Economics, Osaka, Japan
Akira Inoue
Affiliation:
Department of Advanced Social and International Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
*
Corresponding author: Akito Yamaguchi; Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Lottocracy and epistocracy have received deeply insightful attention as political regimes. Herein, by conducting an experiment using an online survey, we explored the extent to which public opinion is receptive to political decisions under various regimes regarding two environmental policies: education policy and environmental tax policy. By doing so, we examined whether the presence of tax burdens affected the acceptability of political regimes, i.e., electoral democracy, lottocracy, and epistocracy. Our results revealed that decisions based on lottocracy and epistocracy were significantly less acceptable than those based on electoral democracy. Nevertheless, lottocratic and epistocratic decisions were more acceptable regarding the issue of environmental tax policy. The difference was mainly attributed to people's rejection of environmental tax policy offsetting their rejection of lottocracy and epistocracy. This suggests, first, that decisions based on electoral democracy increase policies' acceptability if they do not involve taxation, and second, that the status of whether or not a decision is electoral does not significantly affect policy acceptability if taxation is involved, whereas on the other hand, people are sensitive to differences between the regimes if the policy does not involve taxation.

Keywords

lottocracyepistocracysortitionsurvey experimentenviromental policy
Type
Research Article
Information
Japanese Journal of Political Science , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , September 2024 , pp. 123 - 139
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press

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