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Research Network on
The Political Theory of ElectionsThe Research Network focuses on the political theory of elections in the broadest sense: debates on whether or not elections and voting is justified; understanding their moral and political properties, their implications for political behaviour, institutions and justification, and their strengths and weaknesses as compared to other ways of selecting people for political office and determining what collectively binding decisions (eg. random selection, appointment, direct democracy). Building on the work conducted in the Horizon 2020 project, REDEM, we aim to create an international, interdisciplinary network of people interested in understanding the political theory of elections and the ethics of electoral behaviour as seen from the perspective of voters, of politicians, of outside observers; and from supra and subnational, as well as national, perspectives.
We aim to advance existing debates about the scope for combining representative and direct democracy; for distinguishing vote buying and campaign promises; and about the relative merits of different ways of organising and funding elections and of defining their constitutive rights, duties and permissions. We are keen to promote interest in the rights of citizens to stand as candidates for legislative elections - a right on which there is almost no political theory - and its relationship to research on political parties, political leadership, political (in)equality and political knowledge, and its significance for the differences between democratic and undemocratic elections, and for the relationship between social and political ideals of equality. Hence, members of this network are interested in both ideal and highly non-ideal political theory and their respective implications for political practice, as well as critical and analytic theory; as well as the connections between moral, political and social philosophy, epistemology and more empirical and positive research in political science.
The proposed network plans to continue and expand the successful outreach, research and public-educational initiatives (including in schools) associated with the Horizon 2020 project Reconstructing Democracy in Times of Crisis; and to facilitate the organisation of conferences and special issues on the political theory of elections and the ethics of voting. Its purpose is to foster dialogue and the sharing of information amongst scholars whose interests in electoral ethics range from recent changes in electoral law in India to the use of lot, rather than elections, in ancient Greece, and include those who helped to develop the now-considerable literature on compulsory voting, the secret ballot, age and other requirements on voting, with new debates on strategic voting, vote selling, prejudiced voting, informed voting, voting under highly non-ideal circumstances and the relationship between voting in elections and in referenda. A core activity of the network will be to prepare an application to the ERC to become a Standing Group.