IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/pophec/v12y2013i2p136-155.html

Disagreement and epistemic arguments for democracy

Author

Listed:
  • Sean Ingham

Abstract

Recent accounts of epistemic democracy aim to show that in some qualified sense, democratic institutions have a tendency to produce reasonable outcomes. Epistemic democrats aim to offer such accounts without presupposing any narrow, controversial view of what the outcomes of democratic procedures should be, much as a good justification of a particular scientific research design does not presuppose the hypothesis that the research aims to test. The article considers whether this aim is achievable. It asks, in particular, whether accounts of epistemic democracy can be reconciled with the commonly held view that disagreement about which laws and policies should be enacted is a fundamental, permanent feature of democratic politics and imposes constraints on how we justify democratic procedures.

Suggested Citation

  • Sean Ingham, 2013. "Disagreement and epistemic arguments for democracy," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 12(2), pages 136-155, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pophec:v:12:y:2013:i:2:p:136-155
    DOI: 10.1177/1470594X12460642
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1470594X12460642
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1470594X12460642?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Vernon Henderson & Adam Storeygard & David N. Weil, 2011. "A Bright Idea for Measuring Economic Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 194-199, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Seiffert, Sebastian, 2015. "The Role of Economic Geography in Subnational African Development," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113186, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Nguyen, Cuong Viet & Tran, Tuyen Quang & Van Vu, Huong, 2024. "The long-term effects of war on foreign direct investment and economic development: evidence from Vietnam," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    3. Gaurav Dhamija & Punarjit Roychowdhury & Binay Shankar, 2025. "Does urbanization empower women? Evidence from India," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 38(1), pages 1-47, March.
    4. Chen, Feifei & Qiu, Huanguang & Yang, Sansi, 2025. "Energy transition of the poor: Quasi-experimental evidence from poverty alleviation relocation program in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    5. Çağatay Bircan & Ralph De Haas, 2020. "The Limits of Lending? Banks and Technology Adoption across Russia," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(2), pages 536-609.
    6. de Haas, Ralph & Poelhekke, Steven, 2016. "Mining Matters : Natural Resource Extraction and Local Business Constraints," Discussion Paper 2016-034, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    7. Villa, Juan M., 2014. "Social transfers and growth: The missing evidence from luminosity data," WIDER Working Paper Series 090, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    8. Molina Millán, Teresa, 2015. "Regional Migration, Insurance and Economic Shocks: Evidence from Nicaragua," IZA Discussion Papers 9494, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Edward Oughton, 2021. "Policy options for digital infrastructure strategies: A simulation model for broadband universal service in Africa," Papers 2102.03561, arXiv.org.
    10. Ajzenman, Nicolás & Aksoy, Cevat Giray & Guriev, Sergei, 2022. "Exposure to transit migration: Public attitudes and entrepreneurship," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    11. Dang, Hai-Anh H & Deininger, Klaus & Nguyen, Cuong Viet, 2024. "Did Program Support for the Poorest Areas Work? Evidence from Rural Vietnam," IZA Discussion Papers 17445, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Tähtinen, Tuuli, 2024. "When Facebook Is the Internet: The Role of Social Media in Ethnic Conflict," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    13. Prem, Mounu & Purroy, Miguel E. & Vargas, Juan F., 2025. "Landmines: The local effects of demining," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 247(C).
    14. Pragyan Deb & Davide Furceri & Jonathan D. Ostry & Nour Tawk, 2022. "The Economic Effects of COVID-19 Containment Measures," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 33(1), pages 1-32, February.
    15. Zhongwu Zhang & Yuanfang Liu, 2022. "Spatial Expansion and Correlation of Urban Agglomeration in the Yellow River Basin Based on Multi-Source Nighttime Light Data," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-16, July.
    16. Arthur Blouin, 2021. "Axis-orientation and knowledge transmission: evidence from the Bantu expansion," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 26(4), pages 359-384, December.
    17. Alejandro del Valle & Alain de Janvry & Elisabeth Sadoulet, 2020. "Rules for Recovery: Impact of Indexed Disaster Funds on Shock Coping in Mexico," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 164-195, October.
    18. Michael Greenstone & B. Kelsey Jack, 2013. "Envirodevonomics: A Research Agenda for a Young Field," NBER Working Papers 19426, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Edward J. Oughton & Jatin Mathur, 2020. "Predicting cell phone adoption metrics using satellite imagery," Papers 2006.07311, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2021.
    20. Canen, Nathan & Ch, Rafael & Wantchekon, Leonard, 2023. "Political uncertainty and the forms of state capture," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:pophec:v:12:y:2013:i:2:p:136-155. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.