IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/drm/wpaper/2024-25.html

Democracy, Epistocracy and Hybrid decision-making: Information specificity and costs of political governance

Author

Listed:
  • Alexandre Chirat
  • Cyril Hédoin

Abstract

This paper contributes to the Democracy versus Epistocracy debate (Brennan and Landemore 2022) by providing a theoretical framework and a criterion to choose between democratic, hybrid and epistocratic modes of political governance. From a normative perspective, we claim that the specificity of information should (at least partially) guide the choice between these modes of political governance because of its impact on costs of political governance. The main logic of the model is the following: an issue has a degree of information specificity that determines costs of political governance combined in a Social Costs Function. Therefore, the model helps to assess the relative efficiency between democratic, hybrid and epistocratic decision-making procedures to reach collective choices.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexandre Chirat & Cyril Hédoin, 2024. "Democracy, Epistocracy and Hybrid decision-making: Information specificity and costs of political governance," EconomiX Working Papers 2024-25, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    • Handle: RePEc:drm:wpaper:2024-25
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://economix.fr/pdf/dt/2024/WP_EcoX_2024-25.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alberto Alesina & Guido Tabellini, 2007. "Bureaucrats or Politicians? Part I: A Single Policy Task," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 169-179, March.
    2. Anke Kessler, 2005. "Representative versus direct democracy: The role of informational asymmetries," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 122(1), pages 9-38, January.
    3. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    4. Wittman, Donald, 1989. "Why Democracies Produce Efficient Results," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(6), pages 1395-1424, December.
    5. Herbert A. Simon, 1955. "A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 69(1), pages 99-118.
    6. Alesina, Alberto & Tabellini, Guido, 2008. "Bureaucrats or politicians? Part II: Multiple policy tasks," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3-4), pages 426-447, April.
    7. Caramani, Daniele, 2017. "Will vs. Reason: The Populist and Technocratic Forms of Political Representation and Their Critique to Party Government," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 111(1), pages 54-67, February.
    8. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 1992. "A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change in Informational Cascades," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 992-1026, October.
    9. Sergei Guriev & Elias Papaioannou, 2022. "The Political Economy of Populism," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 753-832, September.
    10. Eric Maskin & Jean Tirole, 2004. "The Politician and the Judge: Accountability in Government," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 1034-1054, September.
    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. Guido Merzoni & Federico Trombetta, 2016. "The cost of doing the right thing. A model of populism with rent-seeking politicians and the economic crisis," DISEIS - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo dis1602, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo (DISEIS).
    2. Baskaran, Thushyanthan & Lopes da Fonseca, Mariana, 2021. "Appointed public officials and local favoritism: Evidence from the German states," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    3. Qian, Nancy & Padró i Miquel, Gerard & Martinez-Bravo, Monica & Yao, Yang, 2011. "Do Local Elections in Non-Democracies Increase Accountability? Evidence from Rural China," CEPR Discussion Papers 8368, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    4. Ash, Elliott & MacLeod, W. Bentley, 2021. "Reducing partisanship in judicial elections can improve judge quality: Evidence from U.S. state supreme courts," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    5. Emilio Ocampo, 2019. "The Economic Analysis of Populism. A Selective Review of the Literature," CEMA Working Papers: Serie Documentos de Trabajo. 694, Universidad del CEMA.
    6. José Félix Sanz Sanz, 2026. "Reflexiones sobre el sistema fiscal español: notas para un debate necesario," Studies on the Spanish Economy eee2026-01, FEDEA.
    7. Tinghua Yu, 2021. "Intrinsic Motivation, Office Incentives, and Innovation," BCAM Working Papers 2106, Birkbeck Centre for Applied Macroeconomics.
    8. Ruben Enikolopov, 2011. "Are Bureaucrats Really Paid Like Bureaucrats?," Working Papers w0165, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR).
    9. Galina Zudenkova, 2015. "Political cronyism," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 44(3), pages 473-492, March.
    10. Frisell, Lars & Roszbach, Kasper & spagnolo, giancarlo, 2008. "Governing the Governors: A Clinical Study of Central Banks," Working Paper Series 221, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    11. Asatryan, Zareh & Baskaran, Thushyanthan & Birkholz, Carlo & Hufschmidt, Patrick, 2023. "Favoritism by the governing elite," Ruhr Economic Papers 1029, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    12. Guido Merzoni & Federico Trombetta, 2025. "The Political Economy of Technocratic Governments," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 64(4), pages 879-913, June.
    13. Gerardi, Dino & Grillo, Edoardo & Monzón, Ignacio, 2022. "The perils of friendly oversight," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    14. Gratton, Gabriele & Lee, Barton E., 2026. "Drain the swamp: A theory of anti-elite populism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 259(C).
    15. Georgy Egorov & Konstantin Sonin, 2013. "A Political Theory of Populism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(2), pages 771-805.
    16. Eric Langlais & Marie Obidzinski, 2013. "Elected vs appointed public law enforcers," Working Papers hal-04141175, HAL.
    17. Monica Martinez-Bravo, 2014. "The Role of Local Officials in New Democracies: Evidence from Indonesia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(4), pages 1244-1287, April.
    18. Brian C. Albrecht & Joshua R. Hendrickson & Alexander William Salter, 2022. "Evolution, uncertainty, and the asymptotic efficiency of policy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 192(1), pages 169-188, July.
    19. Zudenkova, Galina, 2011. "Cronyism in Business, Public Sector and Politics," MPRA Paper 30231, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Binswanger, J. & Prüfer, J., 2009. "Imperfect Information, Democracy, and Populism," Other publications TiSEM cd6570a3-6827-4060-8fd6-5, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • P35 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions - - - Public Finance

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:drm:wpaper:2024-25. 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: Valerie Mignon The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Valerie Mignon to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/modemfr.html .

    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.