Democracy, Epistocracy and Hybrid decision-making: Information specificity and costs of political governance

Alexandre Chirat and Cyril Hédoin

No 2024-25, EconomiX Working Papers from University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX

Abstract: This paper contributes to the Democracy versus Epistocracy debate (Brennan and Landemore 2022) by providing a theoretical framework and a criterion to choose between democratic, hybrid and epistocratic modes of political governance. From a normative perspective, we claim that the specificity of information should (at least partially) guide the choice between these modes of political governance because of its impact on costs of political governance. The main logic of the model is the following: an issue has a degree of information specificity that determines costs of political governance combined in a Social Costs Function. Therefore, the model helps to assess the relative efficiency between democratic, hybrid and epistocratic decision-making procedures to reach collective choices.

Keywords: Democracy; –; Epistocracy; –; Social; Choice; –; Information; –; Social; Costs; Function (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D71 D83 P35 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-inv and nep-pol
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:drm:wpaper:2024-25

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