Populism, liberal democracy and the ethics of peoplehood

Imperfect Information, Democracy, and Populism∗

The modern world is complex and difficult to understand for voters, who may hold beliefs that are at variance with reality. Politicians face incentives to pander to voters’ beliefs to get reelected. We analyze the welfare effects of this pandering and show that it comes along with both costs and benefits. Moreover, we explore optimal constitutional design in the presence of imperfect informatio...

Democracy , Populism , and ( Un ) bounded Rationality ∗

In many instances, both voters and politicians are imperfectly informed about which policies are optimal. We analyze politicians’ policy choice in such situations. A distinctive element of our analysis is that we investigate how the strategic sophistication of voters’ beliefs about politicians’ behavior affects policy choice. This provides a novel approach in political economy that leads to a n...

Public Service and Liberal Democracy

The debate on television’s "public service"obligations can only make full sense if integrated in the broader context of the debate on the best political model for society. In fact, the classic "public service"rationale is based in a normative conception of good and in a suspicious view of the average citizen that is largely tributary of a Platonic or Elitist approach to the political organizati...

Liberal Equality and Ethics *

Subjective Measures of Liberal Democracy

Using democracy in empirical work requires accurate measurement. Yet, most policy and academic research presupposes the accuracy of available measures. This article explores judgespecific measurement errors in cross-national indicators of liberal democracy. The authors evaluate the magnitude of these errors in widely used measures of democracy and determine whether their results replicate durin...