The deepest foundation of our democratic crisis
By: Mansbridge, Jane
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Material type: 
BookPublisher: International Political Science Review Description: 46(1), Jan, 2025: p.3-17.Subject(s): • Democratic crisis, Legitimacy, Free-rider, Recursive representation, Descriptive representation, Corruption, Representative system, Legitimate coercion
In:
International Political Science ReviewSummary: The deepest foundation of our democratic crisis is our increasing human interdependence. That interdependence creates increasing needs for ‘free-use goods’: goods that, once produced, anyone can use without paying (other names: “public goods,” “non-excludable goods”). Such goods produce the classic “free-rider” problems to which the most efficient solution in societies of strangers is usually government provision through taxes or regulation, both of which depend on a combination of voluntarism (based on duty and solidarity) and legitimate coercion. More interdependence creates more free-rider problems, which require more government intervention/coercion. Our eighteenth-century democratic mechanisms were not designed to legitimate the amount of state coercion we now need. To bolster legitimacy, we need to embrace the logic of free-use goods and replace one-way with recursive representation, the principle of distinction with more descriptive representation, corruption with clean institutions, and legislative-centric democracy with a full representative system approach, all drawing on our collective intelligence.- Reproduced
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01925121231203719
| Item type | Current location | Call number | Vol info | Status | Date due | Barcode |
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Articles
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Indian Institute of Public Administration | 46(1), Jan, 2025: p.3-17 | Available | AR136517 |
The deepest foundation of our democratic crisis is our increasing human interdependence. That interdependence creates increasing needs for ‘free-use goods’: goods that, once produced, anyone can use without paying (other names: “public goods,” “non-excludable goods”). Such goods produce the classic “free-rider” problems to which the most efficient solution in societies of strangers is usually government provision through taxes or regulation, both of which depend on a combination of voluntarism (based on duty and solidarity) and legitimate coercion. More interdependence creates more free-rider problems, which require more government intervention/coercion. Our eighteenth-century democratic mechanisms were not designed to legitimate the amount of state coercion we now need. To bolster legitimacy, we need to embrace the logic of free-use goods and replace one-way with recursive representation, the principle of distinction with more descriptive representation, corruption with clean institutions, and legislative-centric democracy with a full representative system approach, all drawing on our collective intelligence.- Reproduced
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01925121231203719
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