Cryptodemocracy and its institutional possibilities

Darcy W. E. Allen (), Chris Berg, Aaron M. Lane and Jason Potts
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Darcy W. E. Allen: RMIT University
Chris Berg: RMIT University
Aaron M. Lane: RMIT University
Jason Potts: RMIT University

The Review of Austrian Economics, 2020, vol. 33, issue 3, No 5, 363-374

Abstract: Abstract Democracy is an economic problem of choice constrained by transaction costs and information costs. Society must choose between competing institutional frameworks for the conduct of voting and elections. These decisions over the structure of democracy are constrained by the technologies and institutions available. As a governance technology, blockchain reduces the costs of coordinating information and preferences between dispersed people. Blockchain could be applied to the voting and electoral process to form new institutional possibilities in a cryptodemocracy. This paper analyses the potential of a cryptodemocracy using institutional cryptoeconomics and the Institutional Possibility Frontier (IPF). The central claim is that blockchain lowers the social costs of disorder in the democratic process, mainly by incorporating information about preferences through new structures of democratic decision making. We examine one potential new form of democratic institution, quadratic voting, as an example of a new institutional possibility facilitated by blockchain technology.

Keywords: Blockchain; Cryptoeconomics; Democracy; New comparative economics; Quadratic Voting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B52 D72 P50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11138-018-0423-6

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