Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/2440/107527
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Type: Journal article
Title: Voting turnout, equality, liberty and representation: epistemic versus procedural democracy
Author: Hill, L.
Citation: Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 2016; 19(3):283-300
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Issue Date: 2016
ISSN: 1369-8230
1743-8772
Statement of
Responsibility: 
Lisa Hill
Abstract: Some epistemic approaches to democracy evince an exclusivistic approach to voting participation whereby high turnout elections are thought to produce adverse outcomes. On this view, high turnout introduces greater input from less politically competent citizens which, in turn, leads to bad governance. I challenge these claims from both an empirical and normative perspective by defending procedural democracy against epistemic democracy. I argue that it is mistaken to privilege epistemic considerations over other values that democracy is meant to serve, in this case, political equality, liberty and representativeness. Further, it is not clear that high voter turnout leads to worse government. In sum, (electoral) epistemic democracy is hard to justify given that (a) even in theory it is unconvincing as a form of democracy and (b) even on its own terms it is not demonstrably better than procedural democracy at ‘performing’ democracy.
Keywords: Voting; equality; liberty; turnout; epistemic democracy; procedural democracy
Rights: © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
DOI: 10.1080/13698230.2016.1144855
Published version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698230.2016.1144855
Appears in Collections:Aurora harvest 3
Politics publications

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