Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the 21st Century with Hélène Landemore

Hélène Landemore is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Yale University. Her research and teaching interests include democratic theory, political epistemology, theories of justice, the philosophy of social sciences (particularly economics), constitutional processes and theories, and workplace democracy.

Her first book (in French) Hume. Probabilité et Choix Raisonnable (PUF: 2004) was a philosophical investigation of David Hume’s theory of decision-making. Her second book (in English) Democratic Reason won the Montreal Manuscript Workshop Award in 2011; the Elaine and David Spitz Prize in 2015; and the 2018 APSA “Ideas, Knowledge, and Politics” section book award. Hélène’s third book–Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the 21st Century (under contract with Princeton University Press)–develops a new paradigm of democracy in which the exercise of power is as little gated as possible, even as it depends on representative structures to make it possible. In this version of popular rule, power is equally open to all, as opposed to just those who happen to stand out in the eyes of others (as in electoral democracies). The book centrally defends the use of non-electoral yet democratic forms of representation, including “lottocratic,” “self-selected,” and “liquid” representation.

Hélène is also co-editor with Jon Elster of Collective Wisdom: Principles and Mechanisms (Cambridge University Press 2012), and is currently working on a new edited volume project on Digital Technology and Democratic Theory, together with Rob Reich and Lucy Bernholz at Stanford.

Her articles have been published in, among others, Journal of Political Philosophy; Political Theory; Politics, Philosophy, and Economics; Political Psychology; Social Epistemology; Synthese; the Swiss Review of Political Science: and the Journal of Politics.

Her research has been featured in the New York Times, the Boston Review, Slate, and L’Humanité. Before joining Yale, Hélène lectured at Brown University and MIT. She is also an alumna from the Sorbonne, the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Ulm), and Sciences-Po in Paris.

In the past Hélène has taught various courses, including “Introduction to Political Philosophy,” “Justice in Western Thought,” “Directed Studies,” “Beyond Representative Government,” “Deliberative Democracy and Beyond,” “Political Epistemology,” and “Political Authority.” In 2014 she won a National Endowment for the Humanities grant for her interdisciplinary lecture course “How Do We Choose, and Choose Well.”

[justgivemethetruth]

Shouldn't people get to vote, or instead of voting engage in polling to express what they are happy about and why, and what they are unhappy about and why. Then a second level needs to analyze the data, transparently, then a third level needs to look at what organs of government or society pertain to the priority problems. But what if making a small minority happy, or not unhappy results in making a different minority unhappy. if there is not some body that has management rights based on some common beliefs, then nothing changes, and if that body makes enough people unhappy, or say the world undergoes catastrophe where a very large number of people have to die ... how does order get maintained? Like massive overpopulation in the face of global warming and massive crop failures? OR ... what about the genetic or biological differences between people or genders. What if there is an evolutionary shape to our societies that is based on gender, i.e. male dominance, and yet in a modern society what which might experience like a biological imperative is no longer acceptable within the framework of Western or modern rights and law and legal theory, but if we lose that genetic standard it biologically alienates and screws massive numbers of people over ... just for some pie in he sky ideal that we have no basis to think can be changed?

[justgivemethetruth]

Is there really a benefit in expanding the number of people who can vote, without some kind of qualification? But then, how do you qualify people, and if and when you do you alienate them and make them and, and then there is always they error factor where some of the smartest people of note, or most loved people in media, or in some field can also be the most mistaken or egotistical. Then, if you finally do get the perfect formula, how do you maintain respect for it and "tune" it if it gets out of whack. Seems pretty impossible ... or academic.