Iceland’s ‘crowd-sourced’ constitution may have stalled, but the experience offers lessons for constitutional reform in other states

In the wake of the financial crisis which nearly bankrupted Iceland, the country began a process to create a new constitution which could maintain the confidence of a public understandably disenchanted with their political elite. As Hélène Landemore writes, what followed was a ‘crowd-sourced’ project which ultimately fell at the final hurdle. However she argues that the experience did show that it is possible to create a kind of constitutional process which is not limited to elites

The Icelandic experience challenges the view that constitutional process must be exclusionary and secretive

In the wake of the financial crisis which nearly bankrupted Iceland, the country began a process to create a new constitution which could maintain the confidence of a public understandably disenchanted with their political elite. What followed was a ‘crowd-sourced’ project which ultimately fell at the final hurdle. However the experience did show that it is possible to create a kind of constitutional process which is not limited to elites, according to Hélène Landemore

Reasoning Is for Arguing: Understanding the Successes and Failures of Deliberation

Theoreticians of deliberative democracy have sometimes found it hard to relate to the seemingly contradictory experimental results produced by psychologists and political scientists. We suggest that this problem may be alleviated by inserting a layer of psychological theory between the empirical results and the normative political theory. In particular, we expose the argumentative theory of reasoning that makes the observed pattern of findings more coherent. According to this theory, individual reasoning mechanisms work best when used to produce and evaluate arguments during a public deliberation. It predicts that when diverse opinions are discussed, group reasoning will outperform individual reasoning. It also predicts that individuals have a strong confirmation bias. When people reason either alone or with like-minded peers, this confirmation bias leads them to reinforce their initial attitudes, explaining individual and group polarization. We suggest that the failures of reasoning are most likely to be remedied at the collective than at the individual level

Talking It Out With Others vs. Deliberation Within and the Law of Group Polarization: Some Implications of the Argumentative Theory of Reasoning for Deliberative Democracy

Talking it out with others vs. deliberation within and the law of group polarization: Some implications of the argumentative theory of reasoning for deliberative democracy. This paper argues that a new psychological theory—the argumentative theory of reasoning—provides theoretical support for the discursive, dialogical ideal of democratic deliberation. It converges, in particular, with deliberative democrats’ predictions about the positive epistemic properties of talking things out with others. The paper further considers two influential objections to democratic deliberation: first, that “deliberation within” rather than deliberation with others carries most of the burden in terms of changing people’s minds; and second, that the so-called “law of group polarization” casts serious doubts on the value of democratic deliberation and, more generally, the ideal of deliberative democracy. Keywords: deliberative democracy; argumentative theory of reasoning; epistemic democracy; law of group polarization. Resolução de diferenças com os outros através do diálogo vs. deliberação interna e a lei de polarização do grupo: Algumas implicações da teoria argumentativa do pensamento na democracia deliberativa. Este artigo defende que uma nova teoria psicológica – a teoria argumentativa do pensamento – fornece uma base teórica ao ideal discursivo e dialógico da deliberação democrática. Converge, em particular, com as previsões dos democratas deliberativos acerca das propriedades epistémicas positivas da resolução de diferenças através do diálogo. O presente artigo considera ainda duas objeções importantes à deliberação democrática: em primeiro lugar, que a “deliberação interna”, mais do que a deliberação com outros, tem uma maior responsabilidade em termos da alteração das ideias dos indivíduos; e, em segundo lugar, que a chamada «lei de polarização do grupo» coloca sérias dúvidas acerca do valor da deliberação democrática e, de uma forma mais geral, acerca do ideal da democracia deliberativa

Roundtable on Epistemic Democracy and its Critics

On September 3, 2015, the Political Epistemology/Ideas, Knowledge, and Politics section of the American Political Science Association sponsored a roundtable on epistemic democracy as part of the APSA’s annual meetings. Chairing the roundtable was Daniel Viehoff, Department of Philosophy, University of Sheffield. The other participants were Jack Knight, Department of Political Science and the Law School, Duke University; Hélène Landemore, Department of Political Science, Yale University; and Nadia Urbinati, Department of Political Science, Columbia University. We thank the participants for permission to republish their remarks, which they edited for clarity after the fact

`Representing and Being Represented in Turn’ - A Symposium on Hélène Landemore’s "Open Democracy"

Hélene Landemore’s Open Democracy challenges today’s democracies to meet their legitimacy deficits by opening up a wide array of participatory opportunities, from enhanced forms of direct democracy, to internet crowdsourcing, to representation through random selection to a citizens’ assembly: “representing and being represented in turn” (p. xvii).  Her aim: to replace citizen consent with citizen power.  The critics advance both praise and misgivings.  Joshua Cohen asks if Landemore's innovations are best understood as supplements or alternatives to the current system. Daniele Cammack argues for the significance of open mass meetings as well as smaller representative bodies. Peter Stone considers citizens’ assemblies inadequate for popular sovereignty.  Christopher Achen warns of problems in accurate representation, through both self-selection into the lottery and domination in the discussion. Ethan Lieb argues that particular innovations are useful only in some contexts, and that in each citizens should learn their appropriate role responsibilities. Landemore responds by agreeing, clarifying and rebutting

Is democracy an option for the realist?

In Democracy for Realists, Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels argue that the depressingly well-established fact that people are woefully ignorant on politically relevant matters renders democratic ideals mere “fairy tales.” However, this iconoclasm stands in deep tension with the prescriptions they themselves end up offer-ing towards the end of the book, which coincide to a surprising extent with those that have been offered by democrats for decades. This is a problem because, if we take seriously the type of data that Achen and Bartels rely on (and add to)—data that should make us realists in the sense of the book’s title—it is not clear that democracy in any recognizable sense remains an option for the realist