Chapter 7 Proportional Representation , the Single Transferable Vote , and Electoral Pragmatism

An exploration of competing electoral systems-single-member district plurality systems (predominant in the U.S.) versus proportional representation systems (STV in particular)-and competing theories of participatory democracy: J.S. Mill's optimistic deliberative democracy model, and Richard Posner's more pessimistic elite democracy model. Mill assumes voters are politically educable, capable of making informed contributions to legislative processes through electoral action. Posner assumes voters are too narrowly self-interested to be substantively educable. Elections, consequently, serve merely as a crude form of quality control and smooth succession of political authority. It is argued that the latter theory is plausible only under single-member district plurality electoral systems like ours, so that the electoral system grounds the theory, not the other way around. Under a single transferable vote system (Mill's preferred system), in which voters' ordinal preferences among candidates govern the outcomes in multi-member districts, Mill's deliberative dempcracy model has a realistic prospect of success. R. Nunan (18) Philosophy Department, College of Charleston, 66 Charles St., 29424 Charleston, SC, USA e-mail: [email protected] A.E. Cudd and SJ. Scholz (eds.), Philosophical Perspectives on Democracy in the 2ist Century, AMINTAPHIL: The Philosophical Foundations of Law and Justice 5. DOl 10.10071978-3-319-02312-0_7, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014 87