Unequal inequalities? How participatory inequalities affect democratic legitimacy

Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy

Joshua Cohen In this essay I explore the ideal of a 'deliberative democracy'.1 By a deliberative democracy I shall mean, roughly, an association whose affairs are governed by the public deliberation of its members. I propose an account of the value of such an association that treats democracy itself as a fundamental political ideal and not simply as a derivative ideal that can be explained in t...

Unequal uncertainties and uncertain inequalities: an axiomatic approach

In this paper, we provide an axiomatic characterization of social welfare functions for uncertain incomes. Our most general result is that a small number of reasonable assumptions regarding welfare orderings under uncertainty rule out pure ex ante as well as pure ex post evaluations. Any social welfare function that satisfies these axioms should lie strictly between the ex ante and the ex post ...

Legitimacy-as-Feeling: How Affect Leads to Vertical Legitimacy Spillovers in Transnational Governance

Transnational governance schemes (TGSs) are interorganizational networks of public and/or private actors that jointly regulate global public policy issues, such as the prevention of human rights violations and the protection of ecosystems. Considering that TGSs mainly address issues of public concern, the general public represents a major source of legitimacy in transnational governance. We the...

How does progress towards the MDG 4 affect inequalities between different subpopulations? Evidence from Nepal.

BACKGROUND Few previous studies have examined non-wealth-based inequalities in child mortality within developing countries. This study estimates changes in under-5-year-olds  and neonatal mortality in Nepal across a range of subnational levels, which allows us to assess the degree of equity in Nepal's progress towards Millennium Development Goal 4. METHODS Direct estimates of under-5-year-old...

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