Goodin, Robert E. and Spiekermann, Kai 
ORCID: 0000-0003-4983-5589
(2010)
Epistemic aspects of representative government.
.
London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK.
Abstract
The Federalist, justifying the Electoral College to elect the president, claimed that a small group of more informed individuals would make a better decision than the general mass. But the Condorcet Jury Theorem tells us that the more independent, better-than-random voters there are, the more likely it will be that the majority among them will be correct. The question thus arises how much better, on average, members of the smaller group would have to be to compensate for the epistemic costs of making decisions on the basis of that many fewer votes. This question is explored in the contexts of referendum democracy, delegate-style representative democracy and trustee-style representative democracy.
| Item Type: | Monograph (Working Paper) |
|---|---|
| Official URL: | http://personal.lse.ac.uk/ |
| Additional Information: | © 2010 The Authors |
| Divisions: | Government |
| Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) |
| Date Deposited: | 13 Dec 2010 13:13 |
| Last Modified: | 15 Sep 2023 23:20 |
| URI: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/30687 |
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