Description
Democracy has many attractive features. Among them is its tendency to track the truth, at least under certain idealized assumptions. That basic result has been known since 1785, when Condorcet published his famous jury theorem. But that theorem has typically been dismissed as little more than a mathematical curiosity, with assumptions too restrictive for it to apply to the real world. In An Epistemic Theory of Democracy, Goodin and Spiekermann propose different ways of interpreting voter independence and competence to make jury theorems more generally applicable. They go on to assess a wide range of familiar political practices and alternative institutional arrangements, to determine what constellation of them might most fully exploit the truth-tracking potential of majoritarian democracy. The book closes with a discussion of how epistemic democracy might be undermined, using as case studies the Trump and Brexit campaigns.
Winner of APSA Ideas, Knowledge, and Politics Section Best Book Award
About the Author
Bob Goodin is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Australian National University. He is Founding Editor of the Journal of Political Philosophy and was General Editor of the eleven-volume series of Oxford Handbooks of Political Science. Goodin's work centres on political theory and public policy. He is co-author of, most recently, On Complicity and Compromise and Explaining Norms, both published by OUP in 2013. Kai Spiekermann is Associate Professor of Political Philosophy at the London School of Economics. Among his research interests are normative and positive political theory, philosophy of the social sciences, social epistemology and environmental change. He is particularly interested in applying formal methods, computational simulations, and experiments to problems in political philosophy. His recent publications have focused on mechanisms of norm avoidance, strategic ignorance and moral knowledge, on information aggregation, jury theorems and epistemic democracy, and on reductionism and holism in the social sciences.
Reviews
"Let me just say this is an excellent, comprehensive study, systematically arragned by theme, of results that pertain to CJT.As well as bringing together old results and presenting some novel ones, the authors also deploy a mized method approach that combines analytical proofs and simulation analyses to shed light ont heir subject matter." * Liam Kofi Bright, Economics and Philosophy Journal *
Awards
Winner of Winner of the American Political Science Association's Ideas, Knowledge, and Politics Section Best Book Award.
Book Information
ISBN 9780198823452
Author Robert E. Goodin
Format Hardback
Page Count 470
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 876g
Dimensions(mm) 242mm * 164mm * 33mm
Winner of APSA Ideas, Knowledge, and Politics Section Best Book Award
About the Author
Bob Goodin is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Australian National University. He is Founding Editor of the Journal of Political Philosophy and was General Editor of the eleven-volume series of Oxford Handbooks of Political Science. Goodin's work centres on political theory and public policy. He is co-author of, most recently, On Complicity and Compromise and Explaining Norms, both published by OUP in 2013. Kai Spiekermann is Associate Professor of Political Philosophy at the London School of Economics. Among his research interests are normative and positive political theory, philosophy of the social sciences, social epistemology and environmental change. He is particularly interested in applying formal methods, computational simulations, and experiments to problems in political philosophy. His recent publications have focused on mechanisms of norm avoidance, strategic ignorance and moral knowledge, on information aggregation, jury theorems and epistemic democracy, and on reductionism and holism in the social sciences.
Reviews
"Let me just say this is an excellent, comprehensive study, systematically arragned by theme, of results that pertain to CJT.As well as bringing together old results and presenting some novel ones, the authors also deploy a mized method approach that combines analytical proofs and simulation analyses to shed light ont heir subject matter." * Liam Kofi Bright, Economics and Philosophy Journal *
Awards
Winner of Winner of the American Political Science Association's Ideas, Knowledge, and Politics Section Best Book Award.
Book Information
ISBN 9780198823452
Author Robert E. Goodin
Format Hardback
Page Count 470
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 876g
Dimensions(mm) 242mm * 164mm * 33mm
