Author Description

Despite The Not-so-distant Invocations Of The End Of History, Representative Democracy Is, Today, Under Siege Even From Corners Where One Once Might Have Expected Strong Sympathy And Support. Indeed, Confidence In Representative Democracy Has, In Recent Years, Been Shaken By The Economic And Political Performance Of Many Such Regimes. The Main Goal Of Our Book Is To Explain Why The Definitive Institutional Features Of Representative Democracy - The Electoral Selection Of Policymaking Officials Who Are Independent In The Interim Between Elections - Are Attractive Relative To Salient Alternatives (including Direct Democracy, Lottery-based Systems, And Meritocratic Alternatives). The Central Idea Is To Explain Why Representative Democracy Is A Distinctively Attractive Institutional Arrangement, Rather Than - As It Is Often Perceived To Be - A Pale And Unattractive Stand-in For More Robust And Genuine Forms Of Democratic Government. Our Explanation Turns On Novel Arguments That Connect The Distinctive Institutional Features Of Representative Democracy To Important Epistemic And Stability-based Benefits. In Addition To Rebutting Arguments For The Superiority Of An Alternative Regime Type, The Book Also Provides A Normative Account Of A Well-functioning System Of Representative Democracy Against Which Proposed Reforms Can Be Evaluated