Wisdom of the crowd? Information aggregation in representative democracy

The Condorcet Jury Theorem and subsequent literature establish the feasibility of information aggregation in a common-value environment with exogenous policy options: large electorate imperfectly informed voters almost always selects correct option. Rather than directly voting for policies, citizens modern representative democracies elect candidates who make strategic commitments. We show that intermediation by sometimes improves choices impedes aggregation. Somewhat paradoxically, possibility encourages conformism candidates. Correlated or partisan biases among can mitigate political failure we uncover. also discuss possible institutional solutions.