Erskine Seminars in Economics

Lecture Details

Prof Max Stearns gives a seminar to the UC Economics Departmet asking the question is direct democracy anti-democratic? His answer - yes - is surprising, and his method of analysis new and distinctive. After surveying the arguments for and against direct democracys institutions (referenda and citizen initiated plebiscites ), Prof Stearns argues for a new approach. He develops a novel methodological standard for comparing alternative institutions (using of a social choice framework to see which one of Arrows axioms in his famous impossibility theorem is violated) Prof Stearn compares the institutions of representative legislatures, those of judicial decision making , and the institutions of direct democracy . On this yardstick direct democracy is much closer to the courts - ie anti democratic - than it is to representative legislature.