Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-kw2vx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-08T23:17:08.832Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

LIMITED EPISTOCRACY AND POLITICAL INCLUSION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2017

Anne Jeffrey
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper I defend a form of epistocracy I call limited epistocracy – rule by institutions housing expertise in non-political areas that become politically relevant. This kind of limited epistocracy, I argue, isn't a far-off fiction. With increasing frequency, governments are outsourcing political power to expert institutions to solve urgent, multidimensional problems because they outperform ordinary democratic decision-making. I consider the objection that limited epistocracy, while more effective than its competitors, lacks a fundamental intrinsic value that its competitors have; namely, political inclusion. After explaining this challenge, I suggest that limited epistocracies can be made compatible with robust political inclusion if specialized institutions are confined to issuing directives that give citizens multiple actionable options. I explain how this safeguards citizens’ inclusion through rational deliberation, choice, and contestation.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , December 2018 , pp. 412 - 432
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ancell, A. 2016. ‘Democracy Isn't That Smart (But We Can Make It Smarter): On Landemore's Democratic Reason.’ Episteme. https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2015.67Google Scholar
Anderson, E. 2011. ‘Democracy, Public Policy, and Lay Assessments of Scientific Testimony.’ Episteme, 8: 144–64.Google Scholar
Anscombe, G. E. M. 2000. Intention, 2nd edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Beckman, L. 2008. ‘Democratic Inclusion, Law, and Causes’ Ratio Juris, 21: 348–64.Google Scholar
Brennan, J. 2016. Against Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Broome, J. 2007. ‘Wide or Narrow Scope?’ Mind, 116: 359–70.Google Scholar
Chappell, Z. 2012. Deliberative Democracy: A Critical Introduction. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Christiano, T. 2006. ‘Democracy.’ In Zalta, E. N. (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/democracy/.Google Scholar
Estlund, D. M. 2009. Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework, 2nd edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
European Parliament. 2016. ‘REACH Regulation 2016.’ Concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals, 2006. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:02006R1907-20161011&from=EN.Google Scholar
Kukla, R., Huebner, B. and Winsberg, E. 2014. ‘Accountability and Values in Radically Collaborative Research.’ Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 46: 16–23.Google Scholar
Landemore, H. 2012. ‘Why the Many Are Smarter than the Few and Why It Matters.’ Journal of Public Deliberation, 8: 1–14.Google Scholar
Manguvo, A. and Mafuvadze, B. 2015. ‘The Impact of Traditional Religious Practices on the Spread of Ebola in West Africa: Time for a Strategic Shift.’ Pan African Medical Journal, 22. doi: 10.11694/pamj.supp.2015.22.1.6190.Google Scholar
Mulligan, T. 2015. ‘On the Compatibility of Epistocracy and Public Reason.’ Social Theory and Practice, 41: 458–76.Google Scholar
Pettit, P. 1997. Republicanism. Oxford Political Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pettit, P. 2012. ‘Legitimacy and Justice in Republican Perspective.’ Current Legal Problems, 65: 59–82.Google Scholar
Pillai, S. K., Nyenswah, T., Rouse, E., Arwady, M. A., Forrester, J. D., Hunter, J. C., Matanock, A., Ayscue, P., Monroe, B., Schafer, I. J., Poblano, L., Neatherlin, J., Montgomery, J. M. and De Cock, K. M. 2014. ‘Developing an Incident Management System to Support Ebola Response – Liberia, July–August 2014.’ CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly, 63: 930–3.Google Scholar
Rehg, W. 2011. ‘Evaluating Complex Collaborative Expertise: The Case of Climate Change.’ Argumentation, 25: 385–400.Google Scholar
Richardson, H. S. 2002. Democratic Autonomy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Richardson, H. S. 2012. ‘Relying on Experts as We Reason Together.’ Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 22: 100–1.Google Scholar
Shields, J. A. and Dunn, J. M. Sr. 2016. Passing on the Right: Conservative Professors in the Progressive University. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Trout, J. D. 2013. ‘Democracy and Scientific Expertise: Illusions of Political and Epistemic Inclusion.’ Synthese, 190: 1267–91. doi: 10.1007/s11229-012-0226-4.Google Scholar
Young, I. M. 2002. Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Zagzebski, L. T. 2012. Epistemic Authority. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar