It is widely accepted that electoral representative democracy is better—along a number of different normative dimensions—than any other alternative lawmaking political arrangement. It is not typically seen as much of a competition: it is also widely accepted that the only legitimate alternative to electoral representative democracy is some form of direct democracy, but direct democracy—we are told—would lead to bad policy. This article makes the case that there is a legitimate alternative system—one that uses lotteries, not elections, to select (...) political officials— that would be better than electoral representative democracy. (shrink)

Without drastic adjustment, this system cannot last much longer," writes Van Reybrouck. "If you look at the decline in voter turnout and party membership, and at the way politicians are held in contempt, if you look at how difficult it is to form governments, how little they can do and how harshly they are punished for it, if you look at how quickly populism, technocracy and anti-parliamentarianism are rising, if you look at how more and more citizens are longing for (...) participation and how quickly that desire can tip over into frustration, then you realize we are up to our necks." Not so very long ago, the great battles of democracy were fought for the right to vote. Now, Van Reybrouck writes, "it's all about the right to speak, but in essence it's the same battle, the battle for political emancipation and for democratic participation. We must decolonize democracy. We must democratize democracy." As history, Van Reybrouck makes the compelling argument that modern democracy was designed as much to preserve the rights of the powerful and keep the masses in line, as to give the populace a voice. As change-agent, Against Elections makes the argument that there are forms of government, what he terms sortitive or deliberative democracy, that are beginning to be practiced around the world, and can be the remedy we seek. In Iceland, for example, deliberative democracy was used to write the new constitution. A group of people were chosen by lot, educated in the subject at hand, and then were able to decide what was best, arguably, far better than politicians would have. A fascinating, and workable idea has led to a timely book to remind us that our system of government is a flexible instrument, one that the people have the power to change. (shrink)

This paper examines the idea that forgiveness requires, either for its existence or for its justification, the meeting of moral and epistemic conditions which show that resentment is no longer warranted. I argue that this idea results in over-intellectualizing and over-moralizing forgiveness, and in failing to accommodate its elective nature. I sketch an alternative account, which appeals to the differences between emotions and beliefs, and the idea that we have more rational optionality with respect to emotions.

It is often claimed both that forgiveness is elective and that forgiveness is something that we do for reasons. However, there is a tension between these two central claims about the nature of forgiveness. If forgiving is something one does for reasons, then, at least sometimes, those reasons may generate a requirement to forgive or withhold forgiveness. While not strictly inconsistent with electivity, the idea of required forgiveness strikes some as antithetical to the spirit of the concept. They argue that (...) forgiveness is essentially elective. In this paper, I dispute these arguments. I argue that the intuitive plausibility of the position diminishes upon reflection and that the best arguments fail to explain why reasons to forgive, unlike most other reasons for action, cannot generate requirements. (shrink)

Few recent developments in information technology have been as hyped as blockchain, the first implementation of which was the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Such hype furnishes ample reason to be skeptical about the promise of blockchain implementations, but I contend that there’s something to the hype. In particular, I think that certain blockchain implementations, in the right material, social, and political conditions, constitute excellent bases for common knowledge. As a case study, I focus on trust in election outcomes, where the ledger records (...) not financial transactions but vote tallies. I argue that blockchain implementations could foster warranted trust in vote tallies and thereby trust in the democratic process. Finally, I argue that if the promise of blockchain implementations as democratic infrastructure is to be realized, then democracies first need to ensure that these material, social, and political conditions obtain. (shrink)

Abstract The idea of ?election? cannot be approached, it seems, through traditional or classical philosophical conceptuality. This idea requires another type of discourse. Not simply because this idea refers to an entirely other body of texts, that of the Biblical tradition, but more radically since it commands another modality of thought which must at once suspend and pursue philosophical concepts to the point where they express themselves otherwise than according to the rationality of their own deployment. In truth, the idea (...) of ?election? calls thus for a redefinition of the rapport between singularity and universality, one no longer structured and circumscribed by ?truth?, but rather inspired by a novel and irreducible modality of ?justice?. A ?justice? which opens to the possibility for an ?ethics?, not as ?communicative dialogue?, ?mutual recognition? or a series of established and rationally grounded laws, but a ?place? of incessant and irresolute, non-intentional and unconditional exposition to the Other. (shrink)

This article is devoted to the study of the nature of the influence of elections on the risks of revolutionary destabilization. The authors study different approaches to estimating the probability of revolutionary events in an election year. Different types of revolutionary events are distinguished within the framework of the level of political violence. The primary reasons for the activation of the politically active part of the population, both in autocracies and in transitional political regimes, are identified, including the factionalization (...) of elites, the activation of "sleeping" institutions, the growth of political competence among individuals, the consolidation of the prodemocratic opposition and its institutionalization, electoral fraud and other manifestations of unfair political competition, greater emotional involvement of the population in political processes, and so on. The findings support the conclusion that elections promote peaceful revolutionary episodes and reduce the likelihood of armed uprisings. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that the influence of elections on the risks of revolutionary destabilization is considered in the regime context. The authors explore how elections affect violent or non-violent revolutionary actions in certain political regimes, according to Jack A. Goldstone's typology (full autocracies, partial autocracies, factional democracies, partial democracies and full democracies). The authors conclude that holding elections reduces the risks of armed revolutionary destabilization in all types of regimes, except for factional democracies. On the other hand, unarmed revolutionary action is more likely in an election year - in all regime types except full democracies. At the same time, holding elections primarily increases the risks of unarmed revolutionary uprisings in intermediate regimes / anocracies. However, even among anocracies, factional democracies stand out, where in the election year the risks of unarmed (as well as armed) revolutionary episodes increase significantly more than in partial autocracies and in partial non-factional democracies. At the same time, for consolidated democracies, holding elections is a factor that inhibits rather than provokes revolutionary destabilization. In full autocracies, the risk of unarmed revolutionary action increases in an election year, but not as much as in intermediate regimes. (shrink)

Elective Affinities: Musical Essays on the History of Aesthetic Theory collects a selection of Lydia Goehr's recent essays. In them she traces “a history of attraction and reaction … of music to philosophy, drama, birdsong, crime, film, and nationhood”. Goehr examines the ways that philosophers, the ideas that they present, and works of art display “elective affinities”. Her procedure is like that of an art historian who presents parallel slides to reveal visual affinities, even between artists who themselves were unaware (...) of each other. Her analyses are erudite, lucid, and always suggestive, but what I found most admirable in Elective Affinities is Goehr's extraordinarily brave experimentation with a novel form of philosophy-writing, the adumbration of which is the focus of this review. Her book is strange enough to be genuinely magnificent and lastingly influential. (shrink)

In deciding whether to forgive, we often focus on the wrongdoer, looking for an apology or a change of ways. However, to fully consider whether to forgive, we need to expand our focus from the wrongdoer and their wrongdoing, and we need to consider who we are, what we care about, and what we want to care about. The difference between blame and forgiveness is, at bottom, a difference in priorities. When we blame, we prioritize the wrong, and when we (...) forgive, we shift our priorities away from the wrong. Recognizing this essential role for priorities in forgiveness allows us to address a thorny puzzle in thinking about forgiveness: how is it that forgiveness can be both principled and elective? If there is sufficient reason to forgive, as will sometimes be the case because forgiveness is principled, how can it be reasonable to withhold forgiveness? Recognizing that forgiveness is a shift in our priorities dissolves this apparent tension between forgiveness being principled and forgiveness being elective. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Twelve years ago the British media got wind of a London gynecologist who performed an elective reduction on a twin pregnancy reducing it to a singleton. Perhaps not surprisingly, opinion on the moral status of twin reductions was divided. But in the last few years new evidence regarding the medical risks of twin pregnancies has emerged, suggesting that twin reductions are relevantly similar to the reductions performed on high‐end multi‐fetal pregnancies. This evidence has appeared to resolve the moral debate. (...) In this paper I look at the role of clinical evidence in medical ethics. In particular I examine the role of clinical evidence in determining what counts as a significant harm or risk. First, I challenge the extent to which these empirical claims are descriptive, suggesting instead that the evidence is to some degree normative in character. Second, I question whether such empirical claims should count as evidence for what are essentially difficult ethical decisions – a role they appear to play in the case of elective reductions. I will argue that they should not, primarily because the value‐laden nature of this evidence conceals much of what is ethically at stake. It is important to recognize that empirical evidence cannot be a substitute for ethical deliberation. (shrink)

In this essay I consider whether the political perspective of third wave science studies – ‘elective modernism’ – offers a suitable framework for understanding the policy-making contributions that ethical experts might make. The question arises as a consequence of the fact that I have taken inspiration from the third wave in order to develop an account of ethical expertise. I offer a précis of this work and a brief summary of elective modernism before considering their relation. The view I set (...) out suggests that elective modernism is a political philosophy and that although its use in relation to the use of scientific expertise in political and policy-making process has implications for the role of ethical expertise it does not, in the final analysis, provide an account that is appropriate for this latter form of specialist expertise. Nevertheless, it is an informative perspective, and one that can help us make sense of the political uses of ethical expertise. (shrink)

There are many ways of evaluating legal and political institutions. This chapter introduces a new way to evaluate legal and political institutions: in terms of their sensibility. I define _sensibility_ as the ability to appreciate and to respond to the world as it is, with two distinct components: (1) appreciating (or understanding or knowing) the world as it is, and (2) responding to the world in light of this appreciation. The first of these concerns the epistemic capacities of institutions. The (...) second of these concerns the agential capacities of institutions. Having introduced the idea of sensibility, the chapter then focuses on a comparison of two different institutional arrangements—(1) electoral representative systems and (2) lottocratic systems of government, as introduced in this chapter—in terms of their epistemic quality or expected epistemic quality. I begin by drawing attention to several concerns about the sensibility of electoral representative institutions, focusing particularly on epistemic pathologies of those institutions. The second part of the chapter discusses an alternative kind of political institution, which I call a lottocratic political institution, and argues that we might well expect these institutions to be more sensible alternatives, at least under some conditions, on epistemic grounds. The negative contribution of the chapter, then, is to raise a series of challenges to the sensibility of electoral representative institutions. The positive contribution of the chapter is to suggest a direction for future institutional thinking, empirical study, and experimentation. (shrink)

The 2024 U.S. election will shape the future of global health policy, with crucial implications for continuing U.S. leadership in global health. The United States has long played a critical role in global health governance, through multilateral institutions under the United Nations (UN) and bilateral assistance to advance U.S. priorities. However, political shifts have challenged U.S. engagement in global health, with the politicization of global health policy threatening global governance under the World Health Organization (WHO) and dividing global health support (...) across political parties. This political polarization in global health proved catastrophic in the COVID-19 pandemic response and influential in the 2020 Presidential Elections. With the United States again seeking to advance global health policy, the 2024 Elections present a clear contrast in global health visions across U.S. political parties – with sweeping impacts on global governance, health funding, sexual and reproductive health, corporate regulations, tax equity, humanitarian challenges, and climate change. The future of U.S. leadership in global health hangs in the balance of this election, raising an imperative for candidates to highlight their global health positions and for voters to consider the global health implications. (shrink)

In the United Kingdom, a number of National Health Service Clinical Commissioning Groups have proposed controversial measures to restrict elective surgery for patients who either smoke or are obese. Whilst the nature of these measures varies between NHS authorities, typically, patients above a certain Body Mass Index and smokers are required to lose weight and quit smoking prior to being considered eligible for elective surgery. Patients will be supported and monitored throughout this mandatory period to ensure their clinical needs are (...) appropriately met. Controversy regarding such measures has primarily centred on the perceived unfairness of targeting certain health states and lifestyle choices to save public money. Concerns have also been raised in response to rhetoric from certain NHS authorities, which may be taken to imply that such measures punitively hold people responsible for behaviours affecting their health states, or simply for being in a particular health state. In this paper, we examine the various elective surgery rationing measures presented by NHS authorities. We argue that, where obesity and smoking have significant implications for elective surgical outcomes, bearing on effectiveness, the rationing of this surgery can be justified on prognostic grounds. It is permissible to aim to maximise the benefit provided by limited resources, especially for interventions that are not urgently required. However, we identify gaps in the empirical evidence needed to conclusively demonstrate these prognostic grounds, particularly for obese patients. Furthermore, we argue that appeals to personal responsibility, both in the prospective and retrospective sense, are insufficient in justifying this particular policy. Given the strength of an alternative justification grounded in clinical effectiveness, rhetoric from NHS authorities should avoid explicit statements, which suggest that personal responsibility is the key justificatory basis of proposed rationing measures. (shrink)

This book argues that alignment between governmental outputs and popular preferences should be a tenet of the law of democracy. Alignment is a core democratic value. Yet it isn’t appreciated by election law scholarship, much of which focuses on other democratic goals. Nor do the courts consider alignment when deciding election law cases. In fact, the Roberts Court has undermined alignment at almost every turn. And in part because of these rulings, modern American politics is marred by pervasive misalignment. If (...) alignment were recognized as a legal and political principle, it could function as a sword or as a shield. As a sword, alignment would be wielded offensively to strike down misaligning electoral practices (or not to enact them in the first place). As a shield, alignment would be deployed defensively to justify aligning electoral practices (in litigation or in public discourse). The federal courts could be a valuable ally in the struggle for alignment. Unfortunately, the Roberts Court has been a foe rather than a friend, declining to invalidate many misaligning policies and nullifying several aligning ones. Fortunately, federal litigation isn’t the only route to a more aligned political system. Congress could pass a range of potent aligning laws. So could state legislatures. State courts are also more promising venues, relative to their federal counterparts, because they adhere to a democracy principle unfamiliar to federal law. Last but not least, the people themselves could pursue alignment on their own, through either direct democracy or wholly private activity. (shrink)

Next SectionIn just forty years, the United States has witnessed the transition in the understanding of the practice of elective abortion from that of a heinous act to that of the most common surgical procedure performed on young women. That transition was facilitated first by a set of ideas which became practices which became habitual and determinative of character and, when taken together, contributed to a tectonic shift in culture. The ideas are to be found in a set of claims—liberty (...) claims and equality claims—that elevate the will of the individual against the structures of the real world. The practices grew out of and were nourished in a matrix fashioned in the sexual revolution made effective by technological and medical advances. The practices, having been made habitual, altered the understanding of sexual activity and recast the understanding of marriage and its ends. This article delineates the defining elements that wrought such a transformation in culture. It will suggest that without a radical retransformation this culture, which has embraced the killing of the hidden vulnerable, carries the seeds of its own destruction. And it will present a response from the perspective of a woman who is by profession a philosopher and who is, by God’s grace, a Roman Catholic. (shrink)

Proponents of the duty to vote (DTV) argue that in normal circumstances, citizens have the moral duty to vote in political elections. Discussions about DTV analyze _what_ the duty is, _who_ has this duty, _when_ they have it, and _why_ they have it. Missing are answers to the Specification Question: to _which_ elections does DTV apply? A dilemma arises for some supporters of DTV—in this paper, I focus on Julia Maskivker’s work—because either answer is problematic. First, I argue (...) that it is implausible that DTV applies to _all_ elections because this makes the duty too costly for the voter. Second, I argue that there are no good reasons why under normal circumstances DTV applies only to _some_ elections. I consider objections but conclude that the dilemma is successful and therefore the case for DTV is incomplete. (shrink)

This book discusses the relevance of philosophy courses within the undergraduate curriculum as integral to the self-formation that is at the heart of a liberal education. The objective is to provide a historically layered view of what it can still mean to study for its own sake. The elective university classroom is important because the course of study is chosen out of personal interest and enthusiasm, as opposed to being primarily governed by predetermined disciplinary objectives. It engages the student's mind (...) directly and freely, and counters the overly specialized minds favoured by the contemporary university as well as the commodification of its degrees. The discussion builds on the distinction put forward by Raymond Williams between a dominant culture (in this case, university study as contributing to research and/or marketable degrees) and alternative and/or oppositional cultures that have both residual and emergent dimensions. The elective stream of university study is treated as alternative and oppositional to the dominant culture. The elective university classroom is examined as a combination of a classroom, students, texts, and professors. Each element is explored in terms of its alternative/residual significance as illustrated through the history of philosophy: the classroom and students through the life and death of Socrates; texts through the origins of the university in medieval scholasticism; the professor in the Humboldtian reform of the university at the beginning of the nineteenth century in Berlin. (shrink)

Would randomly selecting legislators be more democratic than electing them? Lottocrats argue (reasonably) that contemporary regimes are not very democratic and (more questionably) that replacing elections with sortition would mitigate elite capture and improve political decisions. I argue that a lottocracy would, in fact, be likely to perform worse on these metrics than a system of representation that appoints at least some legislators using election – a psephocracy (from psēphizein, to vote). Even today's actually existing psephocracies, which are far (...) from ideally democratic, are better suited than a lottocracy would be to meet the demands of democratic citizenship (politics must be legible to ordinary people, who must have low-cost opportunities to participate) and the demands of democratic leadership (powerful representatives should be specialized and constrained by competitions for popular support). Democrats therefore have weighty instrumental reasons to reject lottocracy and work to democratize psephocracy, instead. (shrink)

The parliamentary elections in Albania took place on 25th March 2021 and they were won by the Socialist Party. Even though elections took place during the pandemic, the pandemics itself had a minor impact on the process. With the exception of making compulsory a two-week quarantine for those entering the country and thus making it impossible for the Albanian emigrants to cast their vote, the election campaign was organized similarly with the preceding campaigns without concerns for social distancing. (...) The real change which eventually influenced the campaign was the change in the electoral law from closed to open list. For the first time, the party and the party candidates pursued different strategies. In addition to the official campaign, there was an underground campaign with vote buying and exercise of influence which aimed and achieved to transfer vote from the top of the top of the list to candidates in the middle or even lower part of the list. This made it possible to observe and understand the internal conflicts within the parties. (shrink)

Individuals with body integrity identity disorder seek to address a non-delusional incongruity between their body image and their physical embodiment, sometimes via the surgical amputation of healthy body parts. Opponents to the provision of therapeutic healthy-limb amputation in cases of BIID make appeals to the envisioned harms that such an intervention would cause, harms such as the creation of a lifelong physical disability where none existed before. However, this concept of harm is often based on a normative biomedical model of (...) health and disability, a model which conflates amputation with impairment, and impairment with a disability. This article challenges the prima facie harms assumed to be inherent in limb amputation and argues in favour of a potential treatment option for those with BIID. To do this, it employs the social model of disability as a means to separate the concept of impairment and disability and thereby separate the acute and chronic harms of the practice of therapeutic healthy-limb amputation. It will then argue that provided sufficient measures are put in place to ensure that those with atypical bodily constructions are not disadvantaged, the chronic harms of elective amputation would cease to be. (shrink)

In Section 1, we begin by asking what, exactly, it might mean for God to “elect” people and how this relates to their agency and freedom. After getting clearer on what God is supposed to elect people to or for, we argue against the view that a person’s will is not involved in the process by which God elects her, which we identify in part as the person’s coming to have faith. But, in Section 2, we consider several reasons for (...) thinking that a person’s free will is not involved in her coming to have faith, as well as a potential problem facing this view. Then, in the next three sections (3, 4, and 5) we examine three views on which one’s free will is involved in one’s coming to faith, corresponding roughly to three systematic views of divine providence. We discuss certain objections to each of these “models of election,” as well as how each speaks to the possibility of the non-elect. In the sixth and final section, we conclude by addressing the concern that any such philosophizing about God is too anthropomorphic. (shrink)

The chronic worldwide lack of organs for transplantation and the continuing improvement of strategies for in situ organ preservation have led to renewed interest in elective non-therapeutic ventilation of potential organ donors. Two types of situation may be eligible for elective intensive care: patients definitely evolving towards brain death and patients suitable as controlled non-heart beating organ donors after life-supporting therapies have been assessed as futile and withdrawn. Assessment of the ethical acceptability and the risks of these strategies is essential. (...) We here offer such an ethical assessment using the four principles of medical ethics of Beauchamp and Childress applying them in their broadest sense so as to include patients and their families, their caregivers, other potential recipients of intensive care, and indeed society as a whole. The main ethical problems emerging are the definition of beneficence for the potential organ donor, the dilemma between the duty to respect a dying patient's autonomy and the duty not to harm him/her, and the possible psychological and social harm for families, caregivers other potential recipients of therapeutic intensive care, and society more generally. Caution is expressed about the ethical acceptability of elective non-therapeutic ventilation, along with some proposals for precautionary measures to be taken if it is to be implemented. (shrink)

The use of elective egg freezing (EEF) has rapidly increased in recent years. Despite its popularity, scholars have documented a host of concerns in relation to the use of this technology, especially given aggressive advertising of EEF by the fertility industry as “insurance” and lack of data about success rates. Informed consent processes, and informed consent documents, are particularly important in situations, like EEF, where healthy people are undergoing interventions that are neither life nor health preserving. They are also crucial (...) to ensure that people considering EEF are provided with direct unbiased information about the risks of engaging. In this paper, we build on the existing literature that has examined the unique concerns associated with EEF and crucial elements of consent for egg freezing, as well as similar interventions. Drawing from these sources, and focusing on the Canadian context, we identify seven elements that, at minimum, should be contained in consent documents for EEF to meet ethical standards of disclosure. (shrink)

American Politics, often prone to the passions of democratic governance, continues to be subject to those passions in the twenty-first century. Traditionally assigning majority party status to one of the two major parties, this has provided the engine through which change has occurred over the nation’s history. Able to set the agenda of the nation’s business and carry out its program, public frustration was muted given the ability of the political system to address concerns. However, that previous practice of having (...) a majority party is now gone. American politics now takes place within a framework of readjustment: the two major parties are evenly balanced, making it challenging to address the nation’s ills. With the system straining to address public concerns, the public’s frustration level has increased. This essay argues that while change can occur absent a majority party, the lack of a majority party prevents the change from being long-term and systemic over decades. FDR’s New Deal was a system-level change that provided American politics with a public philosophy for decades. At present, rather than realigning, the nation has readjusted. (shrink)

As illustrated in Goethe's famous novel of the same name, elective affinities are powerful relationships that crystallize under changing conditions. In this new book, Lydia Goehr focuses on the history of elective affinities between philosophy and music from German classicism, romanticism, and idealism to the modernist aesthetic theory of Theodor W. Adorno and Arthur C. Danto. Aesthetic theory, she argues, depends on a dynamic philosophy of history centered on tendencies, yearnings, needs, and potentialities. With this in mind, she recasts the (...) theses of Adorno and Danto regarding the death or end of philosophy, art, music, and human experience as arguments for continuation and survival. _Elective Affinities_ tracks the migration of aesthetic and critical theory from Germany to the United States following the catastrophic period of the twentieth century marked by the Second World War. (shrink)

The majority of women who freeze their eggs for non-medical or social reasons, commonly referred to as elective egg freezing (EEF), do not eventually utilize their frozen eggs. This would result in an accumulated surplus of unused frozen eggs in fertility clinics worldwide, which represents a promising source of donation to infertile women undergoing IVF treatment. Rigorous and comprehensive counseling is needed, because the process of donating one’s unused surplus frozen eggs involves complex decision-making. Prospective EEF donors can be broadly (...) categorized into those who have achieved motherhood and those who remained childless and have given up on motherhood aspirations. A two-step systematic counseling protocol is proposed. Firstly, it is imperative to verify and ensure that these women do not want to conceive any children with their surplus frozen eggs before proceeding with further counseling and signing of consent forms. Secondly, various motivating and dissuading factors in the donation of unused surplus frozen eggs should then be comprehensively discussed with egg freezers to facilitate informed decision-making. Key motivating factors for donation include reciprocity in wanting to share the joys of motherhood among egg freezers who already have children, goodwill to help others in need, and avoiding the wastage of surplus frozen eggs after expending so much money, time, and effort. Key dissuading factors include fear of accidental incest between natural and unknown donor-conceived offspring, as well as apprehension of unexpected future contact with unknown donor-conceived offspring due to either donor anonymity being abolished in their jurisdiction or widespread consumer DNA testing. (shrink)

This article proposes a new model of bicameral sortition democracy that rethinks the division of labor between elected and randomly selected bodies. Existing bicameral proposals either give sortition chambers weak or co-equal authority, limiting their ability to realize the epistemic promise of deliberative democracy. By contrast, I propose a model in which an elected chamber sets the legislative agenda and oversees deliberative fairness, while a sortition chamber holds exclusive authority to deliberate and decide policy. This design preserves the communicative and (...) authorization functions of elections, while securing the epistemic advantages of cognitively diverse citizen deliberation. I evaluate this model against three alternatives, pure sortition, co-equal bicameralism, and subordinate sortition bicameralism, along four normative dimensions: resistance to elite capture, representation and inclusion, epistemic quality, and legitimacy and accountability. I argue that only a model that empowers citizens in their ‘post-learning’ capacity, while grounding decisions in a democratically visible and contestable process, can deliver a political system that is both legitimate and epistemically robust. (shrink)

We present results from a study about women and employee-elected board members, and fill some of the gaps in the literature about their contribution to board effectiveness. The empirical data are from a unique data set of Norwegian firms. Board effectiveness is evaluated in relation to board control tasks, including board corporate social responsibility (CSR) involvement. We found that the contributions of women and employee-elected board members varied depending on the board tasks studied. In the article we also explored the (...) effects of the esteem of the women and employee-elected board members, and we used creative discussions in the boardroom as a mediating variable. Previous board research, including research about women and employee-elected directors, questions if the board members contribute to board effectiveness. The main message from this study is that it may be more important to ask how, rather than if, women and employee-elected board members contribute, and we need to open the black box of actual board behavior to explore how they may contribute. (shrink)

Philosophers have proposed accounts of forgiveness in which the victim is warranted in forgiving only if the wrongdoer makes amends for the wrong done. According to such an account, forgiveness is made rational by the wrongdoer apologizing. But this account creates a puzzle because it seems to render cases of undeserved elective forgiveness (where there is no apology or repentance) unjustified. My aim in the present contribution is to argue that electively forgiving unrepentant wrongdoers can be justified if we accept (...) as genuine a minimalist form of forgiveness, according to which a victim can forgive and still resent. Further, I suggest that undeserved elective forgiveness can be admirable if we extend our conception of reasons to include non- desert-type reasons, such as reasons of altruism, generosity or reasons of social context. (shrink)

Electoral control refers to attempts by an election's organizer to influence the outcome by adding/deleting/partitioning voters or candidates. The important paper of Bartholdi, Tovey, and Trick [1] that introduces control proposes computational complexity as a means of resisting control attempts: Look for election systems where the chair's task in seeking control is itself computationally infeasible.We introduce and study a method of combining two or more candidate-anonymous election schemes in such a way that the combined scheme possesses all the resistances to (...) control possessed by any of its constituents: It combines their strengths. From this and new resistance constructions, we prove for the first time that there exists a neutral, anonymous election scheme that is resistant to all twenty standard types of electoral control. (shrink)

Concern with elective-death decisions usually focuses on individuals' competence and understanding of their situations and prospects. If problematic influences on individuals are considered, they almost invariably have to do with matters such as depression and the effects of medication. Too little attention is paid to how individuals, as subjects, are products of both external cultural and social influences on them, and of internal efforts and needs that determine their subjectivity.

Using a large panel of elections in 44 countries, we show that national elections affect CSR in contrasting ways. We posit and find that in strong institutional environments CSR engagement responds negatively to uncertainty and decreases during election periods relative to non-election periods. However, in the context of institutional weakness, characterized by incomplete and captured national institutions, we find that CSR engagement increases in electoral periods, consistent with rent-seeking behavior. We discuss the implications of these results for both (...) theory and practice. (shrink)

National Baha’i elections, conducted world-wide without nominations, competitive campaigns, or parties, challenge the emerging consensus that the only truly democratic elections are multiparty elections in which each party’s candidates compete freely for votes. National Baha’i electoral institutions are based on three core values: respect for the inherent dignity of each person, the unity and solidarity of persons collectively, and the justice and fairness of institutions. While liberal political philosophy interprets respect for dignity exclusively in terms of equality (...) and freedom, the Baha’i model interprets dignity to require respect for the equality, freedom, and nobility of each person. The perfectionist focus on nobility helps explain the distinct features of national Baha’i elections and, in particular, the ban on campaigning. In light of ongoing concerns about the character of the electoral process in actually existing democracies, further research into Baha’i elections and their philosophical foundations provides a promising basis for rethinking widely held liberal assumptions about how democratic elections must be conducted. (shrink)

Multi-winner elections, for example, the election of members to a committee, are now quite common, and include the interesting subclass of elections with a variable number of winners, or VNW elections. In VNW elections, voters determine how many winners there are, as well as which candidates win. Common VNW elections include elections to bestow honorary status, such as enshrinement in a hall of fame, and elections to determine a shortlist of, say, job candidates (...) for interviews. Such elections are VNW elections whenever the number of winners is not specified in advance. Multi-winner elections are often conducted by adapting standard procedures for single-winner elections. Approval balloting is particularly appropriate for multi-winner elections, as every ballot, and the set of winners, are subsets of the set of all candidates. Many methods of counting approval ballots appropriate to VNW elections are reviewed and illustrated, and their properties—desirable and undesirable—discussed. (shrink)

Two of the most influential arguments in favour of the permissibility of abortion were put forward in the latter half of the twentieth century by Judith Jarvis Thomson and Mary Anne Warren. The implications of these arguments for unwilling putative fathers have largely not been considered. Some have argued that Thomson's defence of abortion might allow a man under certain circumstances to terminate his parental responsibilities and rights. To my knowledge, nobody has considered the implications of Warren's argument for men. (...) I will consider the implications of both arguments for men. I will argue that if they are successful defences of abortion then they are also successful in justifying a male counterpart to abortion which I label ‘elective abandonment’. I will not be defending or attacking these arguments as defences of abortion, but will defend the claim that they apply as well to elective abandonment as they do to abortion. (shrink)

Social media analytics (SMA) is immensely used to investigate public sentiment and provide real-time insights into politics and business strategy. In addition, social media analytics has been employed in predicting election results by leveraging machine learning (ML) models in extensive datasets created from user-generated content on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. SMA can be highly effective in this domain, yet issues concerning authenticity and reliability persist. These data manipulations are driven by misinformation, influenced by bots, and reflect a (...) limited representation of social media users in the electorate correspondence. This paper explores how sentiment analysis (SA) and use of ML can enhance election prediction for overcoming the identified issues. This study will evaluate Naive Bayes, random forest, and long short-term memory networks for their effectiveness in predicting election outcomes based on social media SA. Despite the potential for distortion from misinformation, these models demonstrate a prediction accuracy of 94% as shown in case studies. It also addresses how traditional methods of data collection through surveying can enhance SMA, offering a more balanced perspective on public opinion and minimizing biases present in social media data. These findings highlight that SA and ML have the potential to predict election outcomes. However, future research should prioritize the authenticity and diversity of data sources. A reduction in misinformation, achieved without relying on one single platform would lead to improved election predictions. This paper emphasizes the importance of incorporating traditional and digital sources to enhance the reliability of political predictions, complementing the insights gained from SMA. (shrink)

This paper examines questions concerning elective ventilation, contextualised within English law and policy. It presents the general debate with reference both to the Exeter Protocol on elective ventilation, and the considerable developments in legal principle since the time that that protocol was declared to be unlawful. I distinguish different aspects of what might be labelled elective ventilation policies under the following four headings: ‘basic elective ventilation’; ‘epistemically complex elective ventilation’; ‘practically complex elective ventilation’; and ‘epistemically and practically complex elective ventilation’. (...) I give a legal analysis of each. In concluding remarks on their potential practical viability, I emphasise the importance not just of ascertaining the legal and ethical acceptability of these and other forms of elective ventilation, but also of assessing their professional and political acceptability. This importance relates both to the successful implementation of the individual practices, and to guarding against possible harmful effects in the wider efforts to increase the rates of posthumous organ donation. (shrink)

In this chapter, we will give a brief introduction to Artificial Intelligence (AI), situate it in the wider context of Information Technology (IT), and discuss how it could affect the election process. With more and more election-related processes becoming IT and AI enabled, a natural question to ask is how advanced their AI is and if they pose risks to stakeholder trust? We will describe a framework to assess AI capability of a system that is simple to apply and communicate (...) with technical and nontechnical stakeholders. Finally, we will relate the concepts of AI in the context of elections and discuss its implications. This chapter will, thus, help the reader understand the balance between the benefits of AI, its maturity, and how its risks can be mitigated for elections and elsewhere. (shrink)

We provide theoretical and empirical estimates for the likelihood of a negative participation paradox under instant runoff voting in three-candidate elections. We determine the probability of the paradox and related conditional probabilities based on the impartial anonymous culture and impartial culture models for both complete and partial ballots. We compare these results to the empirical likelihood of a negative participation paradox occurring under instant runoff voting in a large database of voter profiles which have been reduced to three candidates. (...) Lastly, we analyze the relative likelihood of this paradox in comparison to other well-known paradoxes. (shrink)

Purpose This study investigates the incidence of ethical violations in the Ghanaian press which has become topical in the wake of misinformation in a charged political atmosphere. Public interest institutions have questioned the unprofessional conduct of journalists covering election campaigns in recent years. This study content analysed political stories from two leading Ghanaian newspapers (Daily Graphic and Daily Guide) to determine the nature and extent of ethical violations, and to examine the level of prominence accorded to political news stories by (...) the two dailies. Design/methodology/approach This paper relied on qualitative content analysis for data gathering and analysis. A total of 387 political news items published between 1 October and 30 November 2020, were analysed. Findings This study found infractions of various nature to Article 1 of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) codes of ethics, chief among which is the deliberate publications of news stories without cross-checking facts. Other infractions to Articles 17, 11, 6 and 5 of the GJA codes of ethics were observed. Political news coverage favours the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) than any other parties, with the two parties (NPP-NDC) given greater prominence and salience by the Ghanaian press. Originality/value The research makes a modest contribution to the growing concern of journalism ethics in an increasing ecology of fake news. (shrink)

Ever since the great Florida meltdown in the presidential election of 2000, Americans have had reason to suspect they may not, after all, live in the greatest democracy on the planet. We have seen breakdowns at every level of the system, from voter registration to voting machine software to provisional balloting to dubious purges of supposedly ineligible voters. Despite the lip service paid to the genius of the American system, the reality is that elections in this country have rarely (...) been about transparency and fair play; they are not about who deserves to win so much as how much each side is prepared to do to push and scrape its way over the finish line. The United States has a history of electoral malfeasance and fraud unrivalled in the rest of the western world -- a result of the unique circumstances of its democratic deve;lopment. Its claims to democratic greatness are themselves fraudulent, and now subject to closer scrutiny than ever before. (shrink)

This paper examines questions concerning elective ventilation, contextualised within English law and policy. It presents the general debate with reference both to the Exeter Protocol on elective ventilation, and the considerable developments in legal principle since the time that that protocol was declared to be unlawful. I distinguish different aspects of what might be labelled elective ventilation policies under the following four headings: ‘basic elective ventilation’; ‘epistemically complex elective ventilation’; ‘practically complex elective ventilation’; and ‘epistemically and practically complex elective ventilation’. (...) I give a legal analysis of each. In concluding remarks on their potential practical viability, I emphasise the importance not just of ascertaining the legal and ethical acceptability of these and other forms of elective ventilation, but also of assessing their professional and political acceptability. This importance relates both to the successful implementation of the individual practices, and to guarding against possible harmful effects in the wider efforts to increase the rates of posthumous organ donation. (shrink)

This article examines the way Heidegger’s account of the unique spiritual mission of the German people is haunted by certain conceptions of the election of Israel. I argue that Heidegger’s political ontology is informed by three conceptions of the mission of Israel: biblical salvation history, kabbalistic panentheism, and Germany literary Hebraism. To link these disparate historical phenomena to Heidegger’s account of the mission of being German, I develop a methodological approach for understanding Heidegger’s “free use of the national” that accounts (...) for the way it binds different sources into a new figure that is haunted by the spirit of Israel. (shrink)

This essay comments on the British Medical Association's recent suggestion that protocols for Elective Ventilation (EV) might be revived in order to increase the number of viable organs available for transplant. I suggest that the proposed revival results, at least in part, from developments in the contemporary political landscape, notably the decreasing likelihood of an opt-out system for the UK's Organ Donor Register. I go on to suggest that EV is unavoidably situated within complex debates surrounding the epistemology and ontology (...) of death. Such questions cannot be settled a priori by medical science, bioethics or philosophical reflection. As Radcliffe-Richards suggests, the determination of death has become a moral question, and therefore, now extends into the political arena. I argue for the conclusion that EV, and wider debates about organ donation and the constitution of the organ donation register, are matters of ‘biocitizenship’ and must, therefore, be addressed as ‘biopolitical’ questions. (shrink)

Browne, Gillett and Tweeddale propose that the use of non‐therapeutic elective ventilation (EV) to secure transplantable organs is ethically indefensible. Their argument centres around several propositions: that explicit patient consent for EV is essential, but since it is not included in the consent process for donation from the patient, using it constitutes assault; that inferring consent for EV from the consent to donate itself is ethically and logically indefensible; and that explicit consent from next‐of‐kin should neither be sought nor honoured (...) in view of the stress EV may cause to staff and families. This article examines their reasoning and suggests that it is fatally flawed. It argues further that in most cases of donation, not using EV may itself be unethical. (shrink)

Context. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter carry a big load of people’s opinions about politics and leaders, which makes them a good source of information for researchers to exploit different tasks that include election predictions. Objective. Identify, categorize, and present a comprehensive overview of the approaches, techniques, and tools used in election predictions on Twitter. Method. Conducted a systematic mapping study on election predictions on Twitter and provided empirical evidence for the work published between January 2010 and (...) January 2021. Results. This research identified 787 studies related to election predictions on Twitter. 98 primary studies were selected after defining and implementing several inclusion/exclusion criteria. The results show that most of the studies implemented sentiment analysis followed by volume-based and social network analysis approaches. The majority of the studies employed supervised learning techniques, subsequently, lexicon-based approach SA, volume-based, and unsupervised learning. Besides this, 18 types of dictionaries were identified. Elections of 28 countries were analyzed, mainly USA and Indian elections. Furthermore, the results revealed that 50% of the primary studies used English tweets. The demographic data showed that academic organizations and conference venues are the most active. Conclusion. The evolution of the work published in the past 11 years shows that most of the studies employed SA. The implementation of SNA techniques is lower as compared to SA. Appropriate political labelled datasets are not available, especially in languages other than English. Deep learning needs to be employed in this domain to get better predictions. (shrink)

By looking at research on the demographic makeup and political experience of candidates and elected representatives running for European Parliament (EP) elections in Slovenia during the last twenty years, a few general patterns start to crop up: the clear prevalence of middle-aged, university-educated men among the candidates and elected MEPs, as well as the fact that most parliamentary (i.e. established) political parties do not nominate their current high-profile politicians for EP elections. Some changes can probably be expected in (...) these areas due to shifting demographics and changes in the political environment. (shrink)