Populism, Epistemic Democracy and the Quality of Government

Research seminar with Bo Rothstein, Professor of Political Science, and affiliated researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies. A special branch of political philosophy deals with the issue of the

Place: At the Institute for Futures Studies, Holländargatan 13, Stockholm, or online. REGISTER for on site or online participation Abstract A special branch of political philosophy deals with the issue of

Bo Rothstein: Is there a contradiction between democracy and quality of government?

Most definitions of democracy rely on a set of procedural rules for how political power should be accessed legitimately. The basic norm for these procedural rules is according to noted democracy theor

European Political Science Review, Vol 5 (2013), pp 363-80. First published online July 16, 2012, doi:10.1017/S175577391200015X. The paper analyses how perceptions of government quality – in terms of i

Research seminar with Bo Rothstein.AbstractMost definitions of democracy rely on a set of procedural rules for how political power should be accessed legitimately. The basic norm for these procedural ru realized by equal democratic rights. In this understanding of political legitimacy, democracy is a “partisan game” where various interests are given fair possibilities to compete for political power. The concept of “quality of government” relates to the legitimacy in the of political power and is based on the norm of  that is the opposite of partisanship. This is to be realized by, for example, the rule of law and a public administration built on meritocracy. Several tensions between these two bases for achieving political legitimacy will be present. For example, a democratically elected government may want to politicize the public administration and may establish public services and benefits directed only to their political supporters. The rule of law includes the principle of equality before the law, but a democratically elected government may take actions that put itself “above” the law. Various empirical measures and philosophical principles for understanding these type of tensions between democracy and the quality of government will be presented in this lecture.

Fish and Fisheries, Early view: doi:10.1111/faf.12197. Abstract A substantial amount of scientific effort goes into understanding and measuring compliance in fisheries. Understanding why, how and when f

Politics & Policy Abstract This article analyzes the emergence of the Swedish “national system for knowledge-driven management.” We argue that the system is best understood as a meta-instrument that

Ethics, Volume 129, no. 2, pp. 284-308. doi.org/10.1086/700032 Abstract This article analyzes approaches to nondeterminacy (e.g., incommensurability, indeterminacy, parity) that suggest that one can make

Economics and Philosophy 37 Abstract Economic ordeals are allocation mechanisms that impose non-financial ‘deadweight costs to qualify for a transfer’ (Nichols and Zeckhauser 1982: 372). Examples include

Democracy was once defined so that neither women nor poor could vote. Nowadays this sounds absurd and it’s obvious that both women and poor constitute as important parts of society as rich men, and sh