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Epistemic Democracy With Defensible Premises1

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  • Dietrich, Franz
  • Spiekermann, Kai

Abstract

The contemporary theory of epistemic democracy often draws on the Condorcet Jury Theorem to formally justify the ‘wisdom of crowds’. But this theorem is inapplicable in its current form, since one of its premises – voter independence – is notoriously violated. This premise carries responsibility for the theorem's misleading conclusion that ‘large crowds are infallible’. We prove a more useful jury theorem: under defensible premises, ‘large crowds are fallible but better than small groups’. This theorem rehabilitates the importance of deliberation and education, which appear inessential in the classical jury framework. Our theorem is related to Ladha's (1993) seminal jury theorem for interchangeable (‘indistinguishable’) voters based on de Finetti's Theorem. We also prove a more general and simpler such jury theorem.

Suggested Citation

  • Dietrich, Franz & Spiekermann, Kai, 2013. "Epistemic Democracy With Defensible Premises1," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29(1), pages 87-120, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:ecnphi:v:29:y:2013:i:01:p:87-120_00
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Franz Dietrich & Kai Spiekermann, 2022. "Deliberation and the Wisdom of Crowds," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 22011rr, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne, revised Jun 2024.
    2. Peterson, Mark & Feldman, David, 2018. "Citizen preferences for possible energy policies at the national and state levels," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 80-91.
    3. Roy Baharad & Shmuel Nitzan & Erel Segal-Halevi, 2022. "One person, one weight: when is weighted voting democratic?," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 59(2), pages 467-493, August.
    4. Christian List & Adrian Vermeule, 2014. "Independence and interdependence: Lessons from the hive," Rationality and Society, , vol. 26(2), pages 170-207, May.
    5. Addison Pan, 2019. "A Note on Pivotality," Games, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-8, June.
    6. Joseph McMurray, 2017. "Ideology as Opinion: A Spatial Model of Common-Value Elections," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 108-140, November.
    7. Pivato, Marcus, 2017. "Epistemic democracy with correlated voters," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 51-69.
    8. George Masterton & Erik J. Olsson & Staffan Angere, 2016. "Linking as voting: how the Condorcet jury theorem in political science is relevant to webometrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(3), pages 945-966, March.
    9. Hyoungsik Noh, 2023. "Conservativeness in jury decision-making," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 95(1), pages 151-172, July.
    10. William J Berger & Adam Sales, 2020. "Testing epistemic democracy’s claims for majority rule," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 19(1), pages 22-35, February.
    11. Aureli Alabert & Mercè Farré, 2022. "The doctrinal paradox: comparison of decision rules in a probabilistic framework," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 58(4), pages 863-895, May.
    12. Obregon, Carlos, 2023. "Social Choice and Institutionalism," MPRA Paper 122458, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Han, Lu & Koenig-Archibugi, Mathias, 2015. "Aid Fragmentation or Aid Pluralism? The Effect of Multiple Donors on Child Survival in Developing Countries, 1990–2010," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 344-358.
    14. Aureli Alabert & Mercè Farré & Rubén Montes, 2023. "Optimal Decision Rules for the Discursive Dilemma," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 889-923, August.

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