IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/copoec/v35y2024i3d10.1007_s10602-024-09437-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Public reason, democracy, and the ideal two-tier social choice model of politics

Author

Listed:
  • Cyril Hédoin

    (University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne)

Abstract

This article develops an account of political legitimacy based on the articulation of a social choice theoretic framework with the idea of public reason. I pursue two related goals. First, I characterize in detail what I call the Ideal Two-Tier Social Choice Model of Politics in conjunction with the idea of public reason. Second, I explore the implications of this model, when it is assumed that decision rules are among the constitutive features of the social alternatives on which individuals have preferences. The choice of the decision rule cannot be made independently of considerations regarding the likelihood that individuals will vote based on political judgments that are not publicly justified. The result is an account of political legitimacy according to which only “elitist” decision rules are amenable to public justification. Some of them are plainly compatible with liberal democracies as they currently exist. Others are however more naturally associated with the concept of epistocracy.

Suggested Citation

  • Cyril Hédoin, 2024. "Public reason, democracy, and the ideal two-tier social choice model of politics," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 35(3), pages 388-410, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:copoec:v:35:y:2024:i:3:d:10.1007_s10602-024-09437-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s10602-024-09437-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10602-024-09437-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10602-024-09437-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mill, John Stuart, 2015. "On Liberty, Utilitarianism and Other Essays," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, edition 2, number 9780199670802 edited by Philp, Mark & Rosen, Frederick.
    2. Hun Chung, 2020. "The Well‐Ordered Society under Crisis: A Formal Analysis of Public Reason vs. Convergence Discourse," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(1), pages 82-101, January.
    3. Marc Fleurbaey & Philippe Mongin, 2005. "The news of the death of welfare economics is greatly exaggerated," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 25(2), pages 381-418, December.
    4. Mongin, Philippe, 2001. "The impartial observer theorem of social ethics," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(2), pages 147-179, October.
    5. Alexandre Chirat, 2022. "Démocratie de la demande versus démocratie de l’offre : reconstruction et interprétation des analogies démocratie-marché," Post-Print hal-03738001, HAL.
    6. Satterthwaite, Mark Allen, 1975. "Strategy-proofness and Arrow's conditions: Existence and correspondence theorems for voting procedures and social welfare functions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 187-217, April.
    7. Kogelmann, Brian & Stich, Stephen G. W., 2016. "When Public Reason Fails Us: Convergence Discourse as Blood Oath," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 110(4), pages 717-730, November.
    8. Robert A. Pollak, 1979. "Bergson-Samuelson Social Welfare Functions and the Theory of Social Choice," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 93(1), pages 73-90.
    9. Kugelberg, Henrik D., 2022. "Social choice problems with public reason proceduralism," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(1), pages 51-70, March.
    10. Herrade Igersheim, 2019. "The Death of Welfare Economics: History of a Controversy," Post-Print hal-02517017, HAL.
    11. Gibbard, Allan, 1973. "Manipulation of Voting Schemes: A General Result," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(4), pages 587-601, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Salvador Barberà & Dolors Berga & Bernardo Moreno, 2020. "Arrow on domain conditions: a fruitful road to travel," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 54(2), pages 237-258, March.
    2. Elizabeth Maggie Penn, 2015. "Arrow’s Theorem and its descendants," Chapters, in: Jac C. Heckelman & Nicholas R. Miller (ed.), Handbook of Social Choice and Voting, chapter 14, pages 237-262, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Felix Brandt & Patrick Lederer & René Romen, 2024. "Relaxed notions of Condorcet-consistency and efficiency for strategyproof social decision schemes," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 63(1), pages 19-55, August.
    4. Bock, Hans-Hermann & Day, William H. E. & McMorris, F. R., 1998. "Consensus rules for committee elections," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 219-232, May.
    5. Marco LiCalzi, 2022. "Bipartite choices," Decisions in Economics and Finance, Springer;Associazione per la Matematica, vol. 45(2), pages 551-568, December.
    6. John C. McCabe-Dansted & Arkadii Slinko, 2006. "Exploratory Analysis of Similarities Between Social Choice Rules," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 77-107, January.
    7. James Schummer, 1999. "Almost-dominant Strategy Implementation," Discussion Papers 1278, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    8. Aleskerov, Fuad & Karabekyan, Daniel & Sanver, M. Remzi & Yakuba, Vyacheslav, 2012. "On the manipulability of voting rules: The case of 4 and 5 alternatives," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 67-73.
    9. Lirong Xia, 2020. "How Likely Are Large Elections Tied?," Papers 2011.03791, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2021.
    10. Dindar, Hayrullah & Lainé, Jean, 2017. "Manipulation of single-winner large elections by vote pairing," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 105-107.
    11. Barbera, S. & Bossert, W. & Pattanaik, P.K., 2001. "Ranking Sets of Objects," Cahiers de recherche 2001-02, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    12. Brandt, Felix & Saile, Christian & Stricker, Christian, 2022. "Strategyproof social choice when preferences and outcomes may contain ties," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).
    13. Souvik Roy & Soumyarup Sadhukhan, 2019. "A characterization of random min–max domains and its applications," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 68(4), pages 887-906, November.
    14. Mizukami, Hideki & Saijo, Tatsuyoshi & Wakayama, Takuma, 2003. "Strategy-Proof Sharing," Working Papers 1170, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
    15. Bruno Frey, 2011. "Tullock challenges: happiness, revolutions, and democracy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 148(3), pages 269-281, September.
    16. Donaldson, Jason & Piacentino, Giorgia & Malenko, Nadya, 2017. "Deadlock on the Board," CEPR Discussion Papers 12503, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Takamiya, Koji, 2001. "Coalition strategy-proofness and monotonicity in Shapley-Scarf housing markets," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 201-213, March.
    18. Freixas, Josep & Parker, Cameron, 2015. "Manipulation in games with multiple levels of output," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 144-151.
    19. Alcalde-Unzu, Jorge & Gallo, Oihane & Vorsatz, Marc, 2024. "Strategy-proofness with single-peaked and single-dipped preferences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 107-127.
    20. Burak Can & Peter Csoka & Emre Ergin, 2017. "How to choose a non-manipulable delegation?," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 1713, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:copoec:v:35:y:2024:i:3:d:10.1007_s10602-024-09437-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.