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Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government Is Smarter is a 2013 book (release date: October 2, 2013) by George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin.[1][2][3] Somin argues that people are ignorant and irrational about politics and that this creates problems for democracy. He further claims that this consideration argues in favor of smaller government.

Themes

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Somin published a series of guest posts on the Balkinization blog outlining the key themes of his book.[4][5][6][7][8]

Reception

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Book reviews

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Jack Shafer reviewed the book on his Reuters blog and discussed its implications for the role of mass media in democracy.[9] Christopher Schmidt reviewed the book on his blog, part of the IIT Chicago-Kent Law blog network.[10]

Philosopher Jason Brennan briefly reviewed Somin's book on the Bleeding Heart Libertarians blog, ending with a strong recommendation to buy the book.[11] Donald Boudreaux also offered a brief review and strong recommendation of the book on his blog, Cafe Hayek.[12]

Discussions

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Somin defended the thesis of his book in the lead essay of Cato Unbound in October 2013.[13][14] Other participants in the exchange included Heather Gerken, Jeffrey Friedman, and Sean Trende.[15] Gerken's response essay used the fox versus hedgehodge distinction, arguing that Somin's ideal voter was a fox, whereas David Schleicher's work stressed that voters tended to be hedgehogs and use their party affiliation as an informational shortcut.[16] Sean Trende argued that despite their ignorance, voters get the important things right.[17] Jeffrey Friedman agreed that voters are ignorant, but claimed that rational ignorance was not the correct explanation of the phenomenon. Rather, he claimed that voters had a simplistic model of the world.[18] Somin responded to all his critics and there was some further exchange of views between the participants.[14]

The Cato Institute is organizing a book event to discuss the book, scheduled for November 6, 2013. Participants at the event include Somin, John Sides of George Washington University, and John Samples of the Cato Institute.[19]

Other mentions

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Bryan Caplan, author of The Myth of the Rational Voter and proponent of rational irrationality, wrote of Somin's book: "Ilya Somin's new Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government Is Smarter takes this [the voter irrationality/democratic failure] literature to new heights of excellence. Unfortunately, his solution is highly unlikely to be adopted. The size-of-government issue is too partisan."[20] Somin responded to Caplan.[21]

An article in Manila Times discussed Somin's book in the context of political protest movements in the Phillippines.[22]

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Somin's work on political ignorance stretches back to about a decade before the publication of Democracy and Political Ignorance. In 2004, Somin wrote a Policy Analysis for the Cato Institute titled "When Ignorance Isn't Bliss: How Political Ignorance Threatens Democracy" that laid out the case he would elaborate in his book.[23] In 2010, Somin wrote a critique of deliberative democracy based on his research on political ignorance.[24]

Somin's work on political ignorance has been covered by the Chicago Tribune.[25]

Relation with other work

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Bryan Caplan's work on rational irrationality

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Bryan Caplan, Somin's colleague at George Mason University, is a proponent of the theory of rational irrationality as an explanation of democratic failure. Caplan rejects many of the public choice arguments for rational ignorance, while embracing the traditional conclusions of public choice. He has expounded on his thesis in the book The Myth of the Rational Voter. Somin departs from traditional public choice theorists by carving out an important place for rational irrationality, while at the same time disagreeing with Caplan's assertion that rational ignorance alone would not be a problem. Somin expressed his key points in blog posts and elaborated further in Chapter 3 of his book.[26][27]

References

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  1. ^ Somin, Ilya. Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government Is Smarter. Stanford Law Books, a division of Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0804786614.
  2. ^ Somin, Ilya. "Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government Is Smarter (introduction)" (PDF). Retrieved 2013-10-26.
  3. ^ Somin, Ilya. "Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter". Amazon (Kindle edition). Retrieved 2013-10-26.
  4. ^ Somin, Ilya (2013-10-04). "Why Political Ignorance Matters". Balkinization. Retrieved 2013-10-26.
  5. ^ Somin, Ilya (2013-10-04). "Why Political Ignorance is a Serious Problem". Balkinization. Retrieved 2013-10-26.
  6. ^ Somin, Ilya (2013-10-06). "Can Education or Information Shortcuts Overcome Political Ignorance?". Balkinization. Retrieved 2013-10-26.
  7. ^ Somin, Ilya (2013-10-07). "Foot Voting vs. Ballot Box Voting". Balkinization. Retrieved 2013-10-26.
  8. ^ Somin, Ilya (2013-10-08). "Political Ignorance and Judicial Review". Balkinization. Retrieved 2013-10-26.
  9. ^ Shafer, Jack (2013-10-08). "More media won't solve political ignorance". Reuters. Retrieved 2013-10-25. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  10. ^ Schmidt, Christopher (2013-10-10). "Somin on Democracy and Political Ignorance". IIT Chicago-Kent Law blog network. Retrieved 2013-10-25.
  11. ^ Brennan, Jason (2013-09-30). "Ilya Somin: Democracy and Political Ignorance". Bleeding Heart Libertarians. Retrieved 2013-10-25. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  12. ^ Boudreaux, Donald (2013-09-30). "Ilya Somin: Democracy and Political Ignorance". Cafe Hayek. Retrieved 2013-10-25. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  13. ^ Somin, Ilya (2013-10-11). "Democracy and Political Ignorance". Cato Unbound. Retrieved 2013-10-14. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  14. ^ a b "Is Smaller Government Smarter Government?". Cato Unbound. October 2013. Retrieved 2013-10-26. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  15. ^ "Is Smaller Government Smarter Government?". Cato Unbound (lead essay). October 2013. Retrieved 2013-10-14. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  16. ^ Gerken, Heather (2013-10-14). "The Fox and the Hedgehog: How Do We Achieve Political Accountability Given What Voters (Don't) Know?". Cato Unbound (response essay). Retrieved 2013-10-14. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  17. ^ Trende, Sean (2013-10-16). "Don't Voters Get Things Right?". Cato Unbound. Retrieved 2013-10-25. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  18. ^ Friedman, Jeffery (2013-10-18). "Ignorance, Yes. Rational, No". Cato Unbound. Retrieved 2013-10-25. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  19. ^ {{Cite web|url=http://www.cato.org/events/democracy-political-ignorance-why-smaller-government-smarter%7Ctitle = Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government Is Smarter|publisher = [[Cato Institute|accessdate = 2013-10-26|date = 2013-11-06}}
  20. ^ Caplan, Bryan (2013-10-09). "A Cheap, Inoffensive Way to Make Democracy Work Better". EconLog. Retrieved 2013-10-25.
  21. ^ Somin, Ilya (2013-10-10). "Bryan Caplan's Voter Achievement Test". Volokh Conspiracy. Retrieved 2013-10-25. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  22. ^ Ronquillo, Marlen (2013-10-15). "Wanna change pork and other public anomalies?". Manila Times. Retrieved 2013-10-25. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  23. ^ Somin, Ilya (2004-09-22). "When Ignorance Isn't Bliss: How Political Ignorance Threatens Democracy". Cato Institute (Policy Analysis No. 525). Retrieved 2013-10-26.
  24. ^ Somin, Ilya (2010-10-19). "Deliberative Democracy and Political Ignorance". Critical Review, Vol. 22, Nos. 2-3, pp. 253-279, 2010. Retrieved 2013-07-10. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  25. ^ Chapman, Steve (2012-04-19). "Mixing ignorance and democracy: Can our system work with uninformed voters?". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2013-07-09. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  26. ^ Somin, Ilya (2007-05-17). "Bryan Caplan's Myth of the Rational Voter". Retrieved 2013-07-09.
  27. ^ Somin, Ilya (2013-02-03). "Transparency and Political Ignorance". Volokh Conspiracy. Retrieved 2013-07-09. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
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