The strengths and weaknesses of federalism have been debated for centuries. But one major possible advantage of building decentralization and limited government into a constitution has been largely ignored in the debate so far: its potential for reducing the costs of widespread political ignorance. The argument of this paper is simple, but has potentially important implications: Constitutional federalism enables citizens to “vote with their feet,” and foot voters have much stronger incentives to make well-informed decisions than more conventional ballot box (...) voters. The informational advantage of foot voting over ballot box voting suggests that decentralized federalism can increase citizen welfare and democratic accountability relative to policymaking in a centralized unitary state.Ballot box voters have strong incentives to be “rationally ignorant” about the candidates and policies they vote on because the chance that any one vote will have a decisive impact on an electoral outcome is vanishingly small. For the same reason, they also have little or no incentive to make good use of the information they do possess. By contrast, “foot voters” choosing a jurisdiction in which to reside have much stronger incentives to acquire information and use it rationally; the decisions they make are individually decisive. (shrink)

Deliberative democracy is a noble project: an attempt to make citizens philosophize. Critics of deliberative democracy usually claim either that the proposed deliberation threatens an existing moral consensus or, instead, that deliberation is impossible amid power imbalances that oppress the weak. But another problem is that combining democracy and deliberation is inherently an attempt to engage publicly in a private activity—where sensitivity to each interlocutor may require a special form of address. Can this be done? Yes, in some contexts. The (...) tradition of esoteric writing has demonstrated that it is possible to layer one's discourse in such a way that all citizens can partake at a level that suits them. But writing for a public is not really deliberation among equals; it is leadership by the writer of the readers. Genuine dialogue among equals that takes account of their differences is, in contrast, inherently a private affair. (shrink)

Deliberative democracy is a noble project: an attempt to make citizens philosophize. Critics of deliberative democracy usually claim either that the proposed deliberation threatens an existing moral consensus or, instead, that deliberation is impossible amid power imbalances that oppress the weak. But another problem is that combining democracy and deliberation is inherently an attempt to engage publicly in a private activity—where sensitivity to each interlocutor may require a special form of address. Can this be done? Yes, in some contexts. The (...) tradition of esoteric writing has demonstrated that it is possible to layer one's discourse in such a way that all citizens can partake at a level that suits them. But writing for a public is not really deliberation among equals; it is leadership by the writer of the readers. Genuine dialogue among equals that takes account of their differences is, in contrast, inherently a private affair. (shrink)

Advocates of ?deliberative democracy? want citizens to actively participate in serious dialogue over political issues, not merely go to the polls every few years. Unfortunately, these ideals don't take into account widespread political ignorance and irrationality. Most voters neither attain the level of knowledge needed to make deliberative democracy work, nor do they rationally evaluate the political information they do possess. The vast size and complexity of modern government make it unlikely that most citizens can ever reach the levels of (...) knowledge and rationality required by deliberative democracy, even if they were better informed than they are at present. (shrink)

The partisan and ideological polarization of American politics since the 1970s appears to have affected pubic opinion in striking ways. The American public has become increasingly partisan and ideological along liberal-conservative lines on a wide range of issues, including even foreign policy. This has raised questions about how rational the public is, in the broad sense of the public's responsiveness to objective conditions. Widespread partisan disagreements over what those conditions arei.e., disagreements about the factssuggest that large proportions of the public (...) may be perceiving the facts incorrectly. The facts in question are important enough that these partisan disagreements may translate into sub-optimal policy preferences and electoral decisions. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss what motivated reasoning research tells us about the prospects for deliberative democracy. In section I, I introduce the results of several political psychology studies examining the problematic affective and cognitive processing of political information by individuals in nondeliberative, experimental environments. This is useful because these studies are often neglected in political philosophy literature. Section II has three stages. First, I sketch how the study results from section I question the practical viability of deliberative democracy. Second, (...) I briefly present the results of three empirical studies of political deliberation that can be interpreted to counter the findings of the studies in section I. Third, I show why this is a misinterpretation and that the study results from section I mean that it is implausible that sites of political deliberation would naturally emerge from the wide public sphere and coalesce into institutionalized forms of the practice such that deliberative democracy can satisfy its raison d’être. Finally, in section III, I conclude that viable conceptions of deliberative democracy should be limited to narrower aims. (shrink)

Deliberative democracy is unrealistic, but so are rational-choice models of democracy. The elements of reality that rationalistic theories of democracy leave out are the very elements that deliberative democrats would need to subtract if their theory were to be applied to reality. The key problem is not, however, the altruistic orientation that deliberative democrats require; opinion researchers know that voters are already sociotropic, not self-interested. Rather, as Schumpeter saw, the problems lie in understanding politics, government, and economics under modern—and postmodern—conditions. (...) Modernity entails levels of complexity that stymie voters' attempts to be well informed about which political promises will actually solve social problems. Postmodernity adds to complexity an overabundance of fragmented information experienced impatiently and fleetingly by citizens who confuse entertainment with knowledge, and whose political demands are as unrealistic as their personal desire for a unique identity. These factors can be added, one by one, to the minimalist rational-choice model of politics, with each step leading us farther away from deliberative democracy. (shrink)

Deliberative democracy is unrealistic, but so are rational-choice models of democracy. The elements of reality that rationalistic theories of democracy leave out are the very elements that deliberative democrats would need to subtract if their theory were to be applied to reality. The key problem is not, however, the altruistic orientation that deliberative democrats require; opinion researchers know that voters are already sociotropic, not self-interested. Rather, as Schumpeter saw, the problems lie in understanding politics, government, and economics under modern—and postmodern—conditions. (...) Modernity entails levels of complexity that stymie voters' attempts to be well informed about which political promises will actually solve social problems. Postmodernity adds to complexity an overabundance of fragmented information experienced impatiently and fleetingly by citizens who confuse entertainment with knowledge, and whose political demands are as unrealistic as their personal desire for a unique identity. These factors can be added, one by one, to the minimalist rational-choice model of politics, with each step leading us farther away from deliberative democracy. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe normative ideals and feasibility of deliberative democracy have come under attack from several directions, as exemplified by a recent book version of a special issue of this journal. Critics have pointed out that the complexity of the modern world, voter ignorance, partisanship, apathy, and the esoteric nature of political communications make it unlikely that deliberation will be successful at creating good outcomes, and that it may in fact be counterproductive since it can polarize opinions. However, these criticisms were aimed (...) at “micro” theories of deliberative democracy. The new “systemic” turn in deliberative democracy avoids these problems by positing a system-wide division of labor in a nation-state: experts and ordinary citizens “check” each other's opinions; partisanship and even ignorance can spur deliberation among citizens; and citizens may remain apathetic about some issues but deliberate about others. So long as the overall level of systemic deliberation increases, instead of decreases, the ideal of deliberation is still relevant in a society as complex as ours. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAlthough Thomas Piketty is largely known for his recent empirical contributions to the study of inequality, his work on epistemology has been substantial. It remains relatively unreferenced in the political epistemology literature both because it has been overshadowed by his work on inequality and because it was written for an audience of economists rather than political scientists. Piketty’s work on these themes can be divided into analyses of political belief formation and analyses of the epistemic properties of democratic institutions. Capital (...) in the Twenty-First Century, Piketty’s recent book, also reflects his long-standing interest in epistemological questions. The major epistemic claim of that book is that political knowledge is an endogenous phenomenon: policy generates new knowledge over the course of its administration. One of the benefits of the primary policy proposal of Capital, the global wealth tax, is that it will generate new knowledge about wealth inequality. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIlya Somin's Democracy and Political Ignorance represents a missed opportunity to fully examine the implications of public ignorance in modern democracies. Somin persuasively argues that existing levels of public ignorance undermine the main normative accounts of democratic legitimacy, and he demonstrates that neither cognitive shortcuts nor heuristics can provide a quick fix for democracy. However, Somin seeks to find a simple explanation for public ignorance in the conscious, rational choices of voters. He thus commits to the position that voters choose (...) to be ignorant and irrational—and to the simplistic implication that given the right incentives they would choose otherwise. This position is empirically problematic, methodologically flawed, and theoretically redundant. On the more plausible view that ignorance is the inadvertent result of social complexity, it is clear that simply focusing on incentives tells us little about what voters would or would not know under different institutional circumstances. (shrink)

It is commonly held that political ignorance is rational, a response to the high costs and low benefits of acquiring political information. But many recent critics of the claim that political ignorance is rational instead urge that it is a simple consequence of agents not concerning themselves with the acquisition of political information whatsoever. According to such critics, political ignorance is inadvertent radical ignorance rather than a rational response to the incentives faced by agents in democracies. And since political ignorance (...) is not a response to incentives, these critics urge, it cannot be ameliorated by incentivizing the acquisition of political information. This paper has two goals. First, I show that these seemingly competing accounts of political ignorance are in fact complementary, together explaining much political ignorance. Indeed, there is a sense in which political ignorance can be both rational and radical at the same time. Second, I more closely examine the relationship between incentives, kinds of political ignorance, and the acquisition of political information. On the one hand, from the fact that political ignorance is rational it does not follow that it can be overcome by incentivizing the acquisition of information. On the other hand, from the fact that political ignorance is radical it does not follow that it cannot be overcome by incentivizing the acquisition of information. Lastly, the complexity of the information in question is more relevant to determining whether ignorance can be overcome than whether such ignorance is rational or radical. (shrink)

Politics is full of people who don’t care about the facts. Still, while not caring about the facts, they are often concerned to present themselves as caring about them. Politics, in other words, is full of bullshitters. But why? In this paper I develop an incentives-based analysis of bullshit in politics, arguing that it is often a rational response to the incentives facing different groups of agents. In a slogan: bullshit in politics pays, sometimes literally. After first outlining an account (...) of bullshit (Section 1), I discuss the incentives driving three different groups of agents to bullshit: politicians, the media, and voters (Section 2). I then examine several existing proposals to combat bullshit in politics, arguing that each will fail because they ignore the relevant underlying incentives (Section 3). I conclude somewhat pessimistically that a certain amount of bullshit in politics is inevitable (Section 4). (shrink)

From Mill to, most recently, Bryan Caplan, political and economic elites have been seen as the solution to the public’s ignorance and incompetence. In order to show that elites are actually more competent than the public, however, we would have to find out what type of knowledge is necessary to enact good public policy. The empirical evidence shows that economic experts have a slight advantage over the general public in knowledge of how to achieve policy goals. But, contrary to Caplan, (...) the evidence indicates that economists don’t possess significant predictive knowledge, and that general economic laws are of little help in predicting the magnitude of the effects of a specific policy in a multi‐variable, complex world. When we adopt a more complex understanding of the reasons behind policy choice, and consider rules and principles in addition to goal pursuit, the slight edge of economic experts evaporates. (shrink)

In “Popper, Weber, and Hayek,” I claimed that the economic and political world governed by social democracy is too complex to offer hope for rational social‐democratic policy making. I extrapolated this conclusion from the claim, made by Austrian‐school economists in the 1920s and 30s, that central economic planning would face insurmountable “knowledge problems.” Israel Kirzner's Reply indicates the need to keep the Austrians’ cognitivist argument conceptually distinct from more familiar incentives arguments, which can tacitly reintroduce the assumption of omniscience against (...) which the Austrian economists rebelled. Callahan's Reply illustrates the need to keep in mind the hypothetical, conditional nature of economic arguments. Notturno's Reply changes the subject by asserting the intrinsic value of social‐democratic participation, regardless of its outcomes—even while, like Talisse's Reply, ignoring the evidence that public ignorance and elite dogmatism probably can't be mitigated by more information or by appeals to be open minded. And Hill focuses on the very real imperfections of market and other private‐sphere decision making, without weighing the shortcomings of the political alternatives. Markets and other private‐sphere decision arenas don't have to be perfect for them to improve upon public‐sector processes. In the latter, cognitive demands tend to be much greater, because of the divergence of modern social problems from the conditions that would have faced the hunter‐gatherers whose cognitive apparatus we have inherited. (shrink)

The Tulis thesis becomes even more powerful when the constitutional revolution he describes is put in its Progressive‐Era context. The public had long demanded social reforms designed to curb or replace laissez‐faire capitalism, which was seen as antithetical to the interests of ordinary working people. But popular demands for social reform went largely unmet until the 1910s. Democratizing political reforms, such as the rhetorical presidency, were designed to facilitate “change” by finally giving the public the power to enact social reforms. (...) The resulting political order has created systemic pressure for policy demagoguery in place of rational deliberation. Mass political mobilization seems to be better achieved by contests of grand principle that pit the well‐meaning supporters of obviously needed reforms against “villains and conspirators,” than by technical discussions of the possibly counterproductive effects of those reforms. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Twenty years ago Leif Lewin made the case that altruistic motives are more common than selfish motives among voters, politicians, and bureaucrats. We propose that motives and beliefs emerge as reactions to immediate feedback from technical-causal, material-economic, and moral-social aspects of the political task environment. In the absence of certain kinds of technical-causal and material-economic feedback, moral-social feedback leads individuals to the altruism Lewin documents, but also to righteousness (moralized regard for the in-group and disregard for the out-group) and (...) myopia (disregard for distant consequences). The mix of altruism, righteousness, and myopia increases the focus on winning the next high-stakes election rather than on discovering or enforcing socially productive institutions. (shrink)

Two crucial distinctions regarding political competence must be made. First, the mere probability that you will make a morally right decision (reliability) is distinct from your ability to skillfully make a decision (competence). Empirical and normative accounts have focused primarily on reliability, but competence is more important if we take central normative commitments seriously. Second, the competence you have on your own (direct competence) is distinct from the competence you have in contributing to some collective enterprise (contributory competence). Direct competence (...) is likely to be extremely demanding in a democratic context, so we should move to a contributory account of competence. (shrink)

Between 1998 and 2006, a new style of television news consumption was born: “news grazing.” With remote control devices in hand, “grazers” flip through TV news channels in order to find interesting news stories. Approximately three‐fifths of the public graze, and this group tends to be younger than non‐grazers. Grazers are less likely than the rest of the public to follow “hard” news about politics and economics, and, not surprisingly, they are even less knowledgeable about public affairs than most people (...) are. (shrink)