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Download File Experimental Democracy – Collective Intelligence for a Diverse and Complex World Felix Gerlsbeck Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2013 © 2013 Felix Gerlsbeck All rights reserved Abstract Experimental Democracy – Collective Intelligence for a Diverse and Complex World Felix Gerlsbeck My dissertation is motivated by the following observation: while we care very much about the outcomes of the democratic process, there is widespread uncertainty about ex ante how to produce them—and quite often there is also disagreement and uncertainty about what they are in the first place. Consequently, unless we have a definite idea what “better decision-making” might be, it is not obvious which institutional reforms or changes in democratic structures would actually promote it. Democracy is a wide concept, and not all institutional constellations and rules and regulations that can be called democratic function equally well. In this dissertation therefore I offer a specific model of democracy— “Experimental Democracy”—that unites the view that the quality of decisions matter, with taking into account the circumstances of uncertainty and disagreement that define political problems. On this account, a desirable political mechanism is one that realizes an experimental method of policy-making directed at solving problems, such that we can expect it to make progress over time, even though we cannot rule out that it will get things wrong—possibly even frequently. I also show how democracy may best realize such an experimental method, and which particular institutional features of democracy could serve this purpose. The argument in the dissertation proceeds as follows. In the first part I develop a theory of the justifiability of political authority in the sense outlined above: a theory that is sensitive to the outcome concerns that many people share, but recognizes the fundamental disagreement surrounding this question. I establish that instrumental considerations should be of crucial importance when we evaluate political authority. Here I argue against pure proceduralist theories that see the outcome dimension as secondary. However, the facts of disagreement and uncertainty about the ends of politics, as well as concrete policy, do seem to pose a problem for any instrumental justification. In response I outline a pragmatic or experimental theory of political authority, which focuses precisely on the capacity of a political procedure to solve political problems under uncertainty. Just as in many other fields of inquiry experimentation and adaptation are seen as the adequate responses to uncertainty, I argue, an experimental and adaptive mode of policy-making is the best response to political uncertainty. In the second part I answer the question which form of democracy would best realize the ideal of experimental policy-making. Subsequently, we should evaluate democratic institutions mainly by their capacity to enable successful experimentation and adaptation. Here, contrary to popular “wisdom of crowds” arguments, I argue that since no single decision procedure can be expected to be reliable across the board, a justified political system may have to employ a plurality of first-order decision-making mechanisms. However, as I show for this to work, these mechanisms must be subject to effective democratic control. The key function of democratic institutions here is that of feedback, in order to enable successful adaptation. Finally, I offer some concrete examples how the functional requirements of a successful experimental strategy of policy-making can be institutionally realized within democratic systems. Table of Contents Table of Contents i List of Figures and Tables iii Acknowledgements iv Dedication vi 1. Introduction: What Should a Theory of Democracy Do? 1 1.1 An Icelandic Introduction 1 1.2 Differentiating Democracy 9 1.3 The Argument and the Level of Analysis 17 1.4 The Normative Basis 20 1.5 The Argument Coming Up 22 Part I: A Theory of Experimental Political Legitimacy 2. The Value of Democracy 32 2.1 Introduction 32 2.2 Justifying Rule; Democratic and Otherwise 37 2.3 What’s At Stake? 44 2.4 The Indeterminacy of Pure Proceduralism 47 2.5 Substantive Values Coming In 53 2.6 Practical Concerns 59 2.7 Intermediate Summary 64 2.8 Against Hybrid Principles 65 2.9 Political Equality as a Residual Value 73 2.10 Sources of Disagreement 83 2.11 Is Politics Really That Difficult? 91 2.12 Conclusion 95 3. Robust Universal Reliability of Democracy 97 3.1 Is “Universal Reliability” Possible? 97 3.2 The Possibility of Rational Choice Under Uncertainty 111 i 3.3 The Public Interest and the Common Good 127 3.4 Universal Reliability and How to Argue For It 133 3.5 Scientists, Not Jurors 150 3.6 A Pragmatic Model of Politics 156 3.7 Conclusion 159 4. Can Experimental Political Authority Be Justified? 162 4.1 Introduction 162 4.2 Complexity, Uncertainty, Difficulty 166 4.3 What is Experimental Politics? 178 4.4 Can We Experiment With Values? 183 4.5 Should We Experiment With Values? 195 4.6 Conclusion: What Does This Spell for Democracy? 212 Part II: A Theory of Experimental Democracy 5. Models of Democracy 218 5.1 Introduction 218 5.2 Aggregative/Majoritarian Models of Democracy 227 5.3 Deliberative Models of Democracy 243 5.4 Experimental Democratic Legitimacy 262 5.5 The Control Model of Democracy 280 6. The Institutions of Experimental Democracy 285 6.1 Introduction 285 6.2 The Identification of Problems 290 6.3 Creating Diversity in Problem-Solving 297 6.4 Making Feedback Effective 330 6.5 Putting it All Together 345 Bibliography 349 ii List of Figures and Tables Figure 1: Democratic Differentiation 15 Table 1: Case 3 125 Table 2: Case 3a 126 Figure 2: A Complex Estimation Problem 251 iii Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without the help and support I got from a great number of people. First I would like to thank my advisors at Columbia University, Jon Elster, Melissa Schwartzberg, and Philip Kitcher, who have been unfailing in their support throughout this project. Jon Elster stoked my interest both in the problem of uncertainty in politics, and in the questions of the design of collective decision- making institutions. His guidance and inexhaustible knowledge have been very important for me. To Melissa Schwartzberg I owe great debts of gratitude for her close mentorship. She followed my project at every stage, and without her practical advice as well as constructive criticism this would not have been successful. Philip Kitcher introduced me to am exciting great body of research at a crucial stage of my project, and I have learned (and hope to learn more) from his kind and perceptive comments. I also thank David Johnston and Jonathan Bendor for agreeing to be on my dissertation committee and for their comments and criticisms, which have helped me enormously (and will do so in the future) to clarify my thoughts on this project. I am very grateful to the rest of the faculty and especially also the staff at the Department of Political Science at Columbia, for their uncomplicated but crucial support. I would also like to thank Jeffrey Lax and Yotam Margalit for agreeing to be on my proposal committee and for their comments, which set me on the right track in the early stages of the project. I also owe thanks to the Mellon Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellows program at Columbia’s ISERP (now INCITE) for their support, material and— especially—otherwise. iv At Columbia and Oxford, throughout the years there, I benefited from the help, support, and criticism of teachers, friends and colleagues. Among many more, they are: Hiroaki Abe, Ashraf Ahmed, Andreas Avgousti, Adam Bronson, James Chappel, the late Jerry Cohen, Simon Collard-Wexler, Axel Domeyer, Kevin Elliott, Aimée Genell, Rob Goodman, David Hine, Kate Jackson, Jennifer Hudson, Yao Lin, Luke MacInnis, William McAllister, Alex Rigas, Pierce O Reilly, Neelanjan Sircar, Peter van der Windt, Jonathan Wright, Liya Yu and Jim Zetzel, as well as those I have likely forgotten to list here. Special thanks also to Michelle Chun for reading and commenting on almost the entire manuscript. Parts of this dissertation were presented at the following conferences and workshops (in chronological order): Brave New World 2011 in Manchester, the Association for Political Theory Annual Conference 2011, the Oxford Political Theory Graduate Conference 2012, the Midwestern Political Theory Annual Meetings 2012 and 2013, and the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting 2013. I owe thanks to all discussants, panelists, and audience members who were so gracious as to give me comments and encouragement. My family, both in Germany and in the United States, has been a constant source of support in so many ways, and I owe them more than I could express here. Most of all, I thank Solongo Wandan. None of this would have been remotely possible without you being part of my life. Thank you. v For Solongo vi 1 Introduction: What Should a Theory of Democracy Do? 1. An Icelandic Introduction Let me begin with a political story that, while it concerns a small and—to many people— probably peripheral place, illustrates a number of key themes of this dissertation.1 In the wake of the great banking crisis of 2008 the government of Iceland faced a particularly difficult decision. Icelandic banks had actively sought investments from foreign individuals, especially other Europeans in order to finance their investment in the immensely risky derivatives business whose collapse would eventually cause the crisis. The “Icesave” interest-bearing savings accounts from the Icelandic Landsbanki became a symbol of this business model. They were advertised heavily abroad and promised high returns on savings. Subsequently, as we all know, the Icelandic banks did fail, and the people who had invested in these accounts lost their savings.
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