Christian List
"Deliberation, Single-Peakedness, and the Possibility of Meaningful Democracy"

Monday, October 30, Time: 4:30
Location: Carnegie Mellon University, Porter Hall 100

Sponsored by the The Humanities Center, and the Carnegie Mellon University Department of Philosophy.

Abstract:

"Majority cycling and related social choice paradoxes are often thought to threaten the   meaningfulness of democracy. But deliberation can prevent majority cycles - not by inducing unanimity, which is unrealistic, but by bringing preferences closer to single-peakedness. We present the first empirical test of this hypothesis, using data from Deliberative Polls. Comparing preferences   before and after deliberation, we find increases in proximity to single-peakedness. The increases are greater for lower versus higher salience issues and for individuals who seem to have deliberated   more versus less effectively. They are not merely a byproduct of increased substantive agreement   (which in fact does not generally increase). Our results both refine and support the idea that deliberation, by increasing proximity to single-peakedness, provides an escape from the problem of   majority cycling."

Profile:

Christian List is Reader in Political Science at the London School of Economics. He received degrees in mathematics and philosophy (BA) and politics (MPhil and DPhil) from the University of Oxford and held research and visiting positions at Oxford (Nuffield College), the Australian National University (RSSS), Harvard University (CBRSS), MIT (Philosophy), the University of Konstanz (PPM Group) and Princeton University (Center for Human Values). He works in political theory, social choice theory and the philosophy of the social sciences. His present research focuses on judgment aggregation, collective agency and the theory of democracy. His publications include "Aggregating Sets of Judgments: An Impossibility Result" (with P. Pettit), Economics and Philosophy, 2002; "Social Choice Theory and Deliberative Democracy: A Reconciliation" (with J. Dryzek), British Journal of Political Science, 2003; "A Model of Path-Dependence in Decisions over Multiple Propositions", American Political Science Review, 2004; "The Two-Envelope Paradox: An Axiomatic Approach" (with F. Dietrich), Mind, 2005; "On the Many as One" (with P. Pettit), Philosophy and Public Affairs, 2005; "The Discursive Dilemma and Public Reason", Ethics, 2006; and "A Conditional Defense of Plurality Rule", American Journal of Political Science, 2006.