IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/pophec/v12y2013i1p68-92.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the elusive notion of meta-agreement

Author

Listed:
  • Valeria Ottonelli

    (University of Genova, Italy)

  • Daniele Porello

    (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

Abstract

Public deliberation has been defended as a rational and noncoercive way to overcome paradoxical results from democratic voting, by promoting consensus on the available alternatives on the political agenda. Some critics have argued that full consensus is too demanding and inimical to pluralism and have pointed out that single-peakedness, a much less stringent condition, is sufficient to overcome voting paradoxes. According to these accounts, deliberation can induce single-peakedness through the creation of a ‘meta-agreement’, that is, agreement on the dimension according to which the issues at stake are ‘conceptualized’. We argue here that once all the conditions needed for deliberation to bring about single-peakedness through meta-agreement are unpacked and made explicit, meta-agreement turns out to be a highly demanding condition, and one that is very inhospitable to pluralism.

Suggested Citation

  • Valeria Ottonelli & Daniele Porello, 2013. "On the elusive notion of meta-agreement," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 12(1), pages 68-92, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pophec:v:12:y:2013:i:1:p:68-92
    DOI: 10.1177/1470594X11433742
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1470594X11433742
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1470594X11433742?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Keith T. Poole & Howard Rosenthal, 1994. "Dimensional Simplification And Economic Theories Of Legislative Behavior," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(2), pages 163-172, July.
    2. John S. Dryzek & Simon Niemeyer, 2006. "Reconciling Pluralism and Consensus as Political Ideals," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(3), pages 634-649, July.
    3. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    4. Miller, Nicholas R., 1983. "Pluralism and Social Choice," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(3), pages 734-747, September.
    5. Dryzek, John S. & List, Christian, 2004. "Social Choice Theory and Deliberative Democracy: A Response to Aldred," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(4), pages 752-758, October.
    6. Farrar, Cynthia & Fishkin, James S. & Green, Donald P. & List, Christian & Luskin, Robert C. & Levy Paluck, Elizabeth, 2010. "Disaggregating Deliberation’s Effects: An Experiment within a Deliberative Poll," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 40(2), pages 333-347, April.
    7. Aldred, Jonathan, 2004. "Social Choice Theory and Deliberative Democracy: A Comment," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(4), pages 747-752, October.
    8. Dryzek, John S. & List, Christian, 2003. "Social Choice Theory and Deliberative Democracy: A Reconciliation," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 33(1), pages 1-28, January.
    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. Sangbum Shin & Taedong Lee, 2021. "Credible Empowerment and Deliberative Participation: A Comparative Study of Two Nuclear Energy Policy Deliberation Cases in Korea," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 38(1), pages 97-112, January.
    2. John Patty & Elizabeth Penn, 2011. "A social choice theory of legitimacy," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 36(3), pages 365-382, April.
    3. Jan Lorenz & Martin Neumann, 2018. "Opinion Dynamics And Collective Decisions," Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 21(06n07), pages 1-9, September.
    4. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    5. Kaivan Munshi & Mark Rosenzweig, 2008. "The Efficacy of Parochial Politics: Caste, Commitment, and Competence in Indian Local Governments," NBER Working Papers 14335, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Burkhard Schipper & Hee Yeul Woo, 2012. "Political Awareness and Microtargeting of Voters in Electoral Competition," Working Papers 124, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    7. Marco Faravelli & Randall Walsh, 2011. "Smooth Politicians And Paternalistic Voters: A Theory Of Large Elections," Levine's Working Paper Archive 786969000000000250, David K. Levine.
    8. Eric Kaufmann & Henry Patterson, 2006. "Intra‐Party Support for the Good Friday Agreement in the Ulster Unionist Party," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 54(3), pages 509-532, October.
    9. Micael Castanheira, 2003. "Why Vote For Losers?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1207-1238, September.
    10. Mihir Bhattacharya, 2019. "Constitutionally consistent voting rules over single-peaked domains," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 52(2), pages 225-246, February.
    11. Sven Banisch & Eckehard Olbrich, 2021. "An Argument Communication Model of Polarization and Ideological Alignment," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 24(1), pages 1-1.
    12. Robbett, Andrea & Matthews, Peter Hans, 2018. "Partisan bias and expressive voting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 107-120.
    13. Peter Nijkamp & Marc van der Burch & Gabriella Vindigni, 2002. "A Comparative Institutional Evaluation of Public-Private Partnerships in Dutch Urban Land-use and Revitalisation Projects," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 39(10), pages 1865-1880, September.
    14. Vincenzo Atella & Jay Coggins & Federico Perali, 2005. "Aversion to inequality in Italy and its determinants," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 2(2), pages 117-144, January.
    15. Hibbs, Douglas A, Jr, 2000. "Bread and Peace Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 104(1-2), pages 149-180, July.
    16. Alan Blinder & Alan Krueger, 2004. "What Does the Public Know about Economic Policy, and How Does It Know It?," Working Papers 875, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    17. Francisco Martínez-Mora & M. Socorro Puy, 2009. "Off-the-peak preferences over government size," Working Papers 2009-9, Universidad de Málaga, Department of Economic Theory, Málaga Economic Theory Research Center.
    18. Asmae AQZZOUZ & Michel DIMOU, 2022. "Tax mimicking in French counties," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 55, pages 113-132.
    19. Ernesto Dal Bo, 2000. "Bribing Voters," Economics Series Working Papers 39, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    20. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/eu4vqp9ompqllr09iepsg269m is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Andrea Baranzini & Stefano Carattini & Linda Tesauro, 2021. "Designing Effective and Acceptable Road Pricing Schemes: Evidence from the Geneva Congestion Charge," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 79(3), pages 417-482, July.

    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:sae:pophec:v:12:y:2013:i:1:p:68-92. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.