21–30 of 47 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've long maintained congress would be much more representative if eligible citizens were randomly selected for 1 congressional term, like jurors are in juries. And like jurors in juries, wouldn't we then be governed by people not smart enough to get out of their congressional term?
Make it pay really well and people won't try to get out of it.
Author here. Not sure why this is showing up today but happy to answer questions! FWIW, we have data from 2014 across many more issues and the basic story is the same. Haven't finished writing that up.
Is your research group working on anything in this vein?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I've long maintained congress would be much more representative if eligible citizens were randomly selected for 1 term. This is the way government worked in ancient Greece (or rather, Athens, but other Greece city-states copied the model).
I'm not too well educated on their gov'ts, but how effective was it? Any signs or indicators that it worked out for the better? Call me intolerant or ignorant, but I personally fear seeing what the general populus would try to get passed in America if such a system were established. Perhaps a naive` worry, but a worry nonetheless.
It worked relatively well. The role of government was considerably smaller than it is today. Also, during their term, serving on the council was a citizens full time job [0]. Additionally, their were still career politicians who advised the council; they just did not get a vote. Notably, among the politicians were generals, who were elected and did not have term limits. In addition to being influential with military and foreign policy, they tended to be influential for domestic matters as well.
[0] Rather, It was their full-time job for one month out of their one year term. For the rest of their term, they attended monthly meetings.
Author here. Not sure why this is showing up today but happy to answer questions! FWIW, we have data from 2014 across many more issues and the basic story is the same. Haven't finished writing that up.
Amazing paper. Thanks so much for contributing this work. I work in civic tech and am very focused on trying to improve the gov system we have through technology. Are there any representatives you have seen recently that are doing a particularly good job gauging the pulse of their constituents? AND/OR is there an ideal scenario you have imagined that is left out of the paper? As an aside, as someone who has started o…
A1: The world would be better if politicians paid more attention to public opinion or knew more about it. I don't think this is so clear. Citizens support many policies not in their interest, don't know everything that experts do, etc. Most democracies reflect a tradeoff between popular control on the one hand and expert judgment / elite control on the other. I don't think either extreme is the best, and don't know where we are on that continuum relative to the ideal. But for what it's worth, my sense is that citizens actually understand this to some extent and ofter defer to legislators' judgments: http://stanford.edu/~dbroock/papers/broockman_butler_legisla...
A2: In order to increase citizen engagement, we should focus on lowering the cost of acquiring information about politics, the cost of participation, or the cost of providing information to representatives. I think this misses the real challenge: increasing people's motivation to participate and the benefits to participation. It's never been easier to participate in myriad ways -- the cost is epsilon. But if people see the benefits as zero, which many seem to, they still won't engage. I don't think the cost side of the equation is where the action is.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've long maintained congress would be much more representative if eligible citizens were randomly selected for 1 congressional term, like jurors are in juries. And like jurors in juries, wouldn't we then be governed by people not smart enough to get out of their congressional term?
> > I've long maintained congress would be much more representative if eligible citizens were randomly selected for 1 congressional term, like jurors are in juries. > And like jurors in juries, wouldn't we then be governed by people not smart enough to get out of their congressional term? Now, I think that a by-lot Congress is a really bad idea for a variety of reasons, but that's a moderately stupid argument when it…
Overall, the problem is that the system bends to accommodate the judges and lawyers, who get paid very well to be there, and abuses the jurors, who do not. Why do I have get up at 6:00 AM just to sit around for three days while you idiots figure out if you need me or not? This isn't rocket science, and you all already have scheduled dockets.
The bigger problem with jury selection is that everything is trying to screen out people who bring in outside knowledge. This actively screens for the ignorant. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing, though. I suspect that it's a good thing overall as the number of times you get someone smart who recognizes a fault is probably far exceeded by the ignorant who think they know something false.
Why?
Conservative politicians don't have a good reason to be wrong. In fact, it's quite the opposite, the better at estimating who your constituents you are, the more likely you are to be reelected.
I'd guess probably error bias. As a conservative, if you overestimate the conservatism of your district, you're not likely to lose many votes (especially in a gerrymandered district). Whereas, if you overestimate the liberalism of your districts, the conservative element will punish you horribly.
Whereas, as a liberal, you have to be more in tune to a broad spectrum of issues in both directions or a challenger can carve off a chunk of your votes.
Author here. Not sure why this is showing up today but happy to answer questions! FWIW, we have data from 2014 across many more issues and the basic story is the same. Haven't finished writing that up.
I think it would be fascinating to look at the dynamic of how young people interact with an increasingly-old government today. Personally I don't know too many people who believe in the system/even care enough to show up to public meetings, write their representatives, or even vote for that matter. Have these dynamics have changed over the years? Is your research group working on anything in this vein?
Interesting. Is government, by which I assume you mean elected officials, really aging?
It's always struck me that conservatives expect to be listened to in the US while liberals expect to be ignored.
Conservativism is born of ambiguity intolerance. One of the defining characteristics of ambiguity intolerance is a need for certainty. As for why liberals expect to be ignored? I'd reckon that has more to do with history and a general sense of malaise and pessimism toward our intractable situation.
It's always struck me that conservatives expect to be listened to in the US while liberals expect to be ignored.
politicians also show systematic misperceptions, with liberal politicians and conservative politicians both overestimating support for conservative policy positions,
Author here. Not sure why this is showing up today but happy to answer questions! FWIW, we have data from 2014 across many more issues and the basic story is the same. Haven't finished writing that up.
1) Politicians don't care about constituent's current opinions, but about their future response to actions the politican might undertake. For example, recent articles indicate widespread support in the U.S. for gun control, but a politician might anticipate: If I support a gun control measure then the NRA will run ads in my district; that will change many opinions [1], spread other negative stories about me, and galvanize my opponents both in public discussion and when getting voters to the polls.
2) The large differences between different subgroups explain the difference: All constituents, all voters, primary voters, and the few who vote in state legislative elections. (I challenge HN readers to name your state representatives without looking them up.)
If these issues are covered in the paper, I apologize; I read what I could now and searched the paper for related terms, but won't have time to finish reading until much later.
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[1] I don't know that ads have this effect. My impression is that most people's opinions are weakly held and that they follow the herd on most issues (whichever herd they feel they belong to).