Capacity-testing as a means of increasing political inclusion

Some competent political actors, primarily young people and the cognitively impaired, are excluded from political participation by modern liberal democratic states. This exclusion occurs because the means utilized by states to distinguish between competent citizens (who must be included) and incompetent ones (who may be excluded) are imperfect. They include age restrictions on enfranchisement and, commonly, legal restrictions on enfranchisement for those with cognitive disabilities. Capacity-testing provides a means to improve on these existing mechanisms for exclusion. It is not, however, often suggested, nor seen as viable. Here, I argue that we should utilize capacity-testing to more effectively include capable citizens in our democratic practice. I defend a particular scope and kind of capacity-testing against common objections

POLITICAL INCLUSION AS A MEANS OF GENERATING JUSTICE FOR CHILDREN

Neste artigo argumenta-se que a posição das crianças pode ser melhorada se lhes for concedida representação política, mediante a sua inclusão nos processos democráticos. A inclusão das crianças como participantes iguais nos processos democráticos provavelmente atenuará as desvantagens estruturais a que estão sujeitas nas democracias contemporâneas. As instituições políticas e sociais terão maiores incentivos para agir de forma proactiva no sentido de apoiar as crianças, e as crianças terão a mesma capacidade dos demais cidadãos para exprimirem a sua aprovação ou rejeição em relação às ações públicas realizadas em seu nome. Num ambiente global ainda caracterizado principalmente por estados-nação independentes, as democracias oferecem o solo mais fértil para a criação de instituições justas. Essas instituições funcionam primacialmente para os que mais participam na democracia. As crianças estão, em todos os estados, expressamente excluídas da participação política ativa, e, nessa medida, as suas vozes, desejos, necessidades e direitos são marginalizados. A inclusão política das crianças é um primeiro passo para solucionar esta marginalizaçãoIn this article it is argued that the position of children can be improved by ensuring them political representation, through inclusion in democratic processes. Embedding children as equal participants in democratic processes is likely to diminish the structural disadvantages to which they are currently subjected within modern democracies. Political and social institutions will have greater incentives to act proactively to support children, and children will have the same ability as other citizens to express their approval or disapproval of public actions undertaken on their behalf. In a global environment still characterised primarily by independent nation states, democracies provide the most fertile ground for the generation of just institutions. Those institutions work best, for the most active participants in the democracy. Children are, in all states, expressly excluded from active political participation, and as such their voices, desires, needs and rights are marginalised. Political inclusion for children is a first step to address this marginalisation

Ein wahleignungstest für minderjährige?

In der modernen demokratischen Praxis gelten Alphabetisierungstests und andere Mechanismen, um Bürgerinnen und Bürger vom aktiven Wahlrecht auszuschließen, weithin und zurecht als verpönt. Dennoch scheinen zumindest einige Testformen ein probates Mittel darzustellen, um die Urteilsfähigkeit von Menschen mit bestimmten Defiziten zu erfassen. Der Beitrag diskutiert einen Vorschlag für ein Eignungstestregime, welches nur auf gegenwärtig von politischer Beteiligung ausgeschlossene junge Menschen angewendet wird, und setzt sich mit einer Reihe von Einwänden gegen einen solchen Vorschlag auseinander. Zuletzt macht er geltend, dass ein Eignungstestregime sowohl für die solcherart einbezogenen Individuen als auch für die demokratischen Staaten, die es implementieren würden, von Vorteil wäre

[n] infants, [n] votes

The inclusive presumption suggests that we should only disenfranchise those whose inclusion will undermine democratic values. Most people think we ought not to enfranchise infants. What harm would enfranchised infants do to our democratic institutions? At worst, they would systematically vote badly, choosing the worst of the available options. More plausibly, they would (mostly) fail to cast valid votes, and those who did successfully cast ballots would select randomly among the available options (as do some enfranchised adults). Neither of these possibilities provides good reason to disenfranchise them. I argue that in a well-constructed democratic system, the inclusion of infants (and all other currently disenfranchised citizens) will on balance be positive. To the extent that in extant democratic systems, enfranchising infants will do harm, that is an issue not with the infants, but with the system, and ought to be addressed from that side

The Milky Way Tomography with SDSS: III. Stellar Kinematics

We study Milky Way kinematics using a sample of 18.8 million main-sequence stars with r<20 and proper-motion measurements derived from SDSS and POSS astrometry, including ~170,000 stars with radial-velocity measurements from the SDSS spectroscopic survey. Distances to stars are determined using a photometric parallax relation, covering a distance range from ~100 pc to 10 kpc over a quarter of the sky at high Galactic latitudes (|b|>20 degrees). We find that in the region defined by 1 kpc <Z< 5 kpc and 3 kpc <R< 13 kpc, the rotational velocity for disk stars smoothly decreases, and all three components of the velocity dispersion increase, with distance from the Galactic plane. In contrast, the velocity ellipsoid for halo stars is aligned with a spherical coordinate system and appears to be spatially invariant within the probed volume. The velocity distribution of nearby ($Z<1$ kpc) K/M stars is complex, and cannot be described by a standard Schwarzschild ellipsoid. For stars in a distance-limited subsample of stars (<100 pc), we detect a multimodal velocity distribution consistent with that seen by HIPPARCOS. This strong non-Gaussianity significantly affects the measurements of the velocity ellipsoid tilt and vertex deviation when using the Schwarzschild approximation. We develop and test a simple descriptive model for the overall kinematic behavior that captures these features over most of the probed volume, and can be used to search for substructure in kinematic and metallicity space. We use this model to predict further improvements in kinematic mapping of the Galaxy expected from Gaia and LSST.Comment: 90 pages, 26 figures, submitted to Ap