A New Book by Danny Oppenheimer and Mike Edwards

Democracy, like many other organizations and systems, is filled to the brim with flawed and irrational people. Democracy Despite Itself explains, with clever arguments, how we are able to transcend these limitations and harness them to our benefit through a perfectly imperfect democratic system.

— Dan Ariely, James B Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics, Duke University; Author of The Honest Truth About Dishonesty and Predictably Irrational

A provocative meditation on a profound question: why does democracy work—at all—when voters are so often irrational? In lucid prose filled with compelling examples, Oppenheimer and Edwards grapple with one of the deepest questions society faces: how to organize itself, in light of the inherent frailty of the human mind.

— Gary Marcus, Professor of Psychology, New York University; Author of Kluge: The Haphazard Evolution of The Human Mind

  • RSS From the Authors’ Blog at leftfielder.org

    • Wired Gets It Wrong May 17, 2012
      Wired magazine just published an absolutely wrong-headed piece advocating “small group” or lottery voting systems.  Why do I mention it, if it’s so bad?  Because on pages 169-171 of my book, I lay out exactly why.  Gosh, makes me feel prophetic.  I won’t bother to repeat it here; suffice it to say that basically everything […]
      Mike
    • A Reasonable Third Way May 16, 2012
      The conservatives at the Times are having a good week.  Today’s entry comes from Ross Douthat, who has an excellent analysis of the basic problem of the attempts to kick-start a moderate third party in the United States.  To summarize: “From the (inarguable) premise that the public is wearied by the failures of the political […]
      Mike
    • It’s Not the Style. It’s the Smile. May 15, 2012
      David Brooks is so close to getting it right, he can almost taste it.  Brooks notes that by a traditional economic analysis, Obama should be losing.  The economy is bad.  Public perception of the economy is bad.  Public perception is that the economy is worse than it was four years ago.  And people blame the […]
      Mike
    • How the Middle’s Bias Gave Obama Political Cover to Support Gay Marriage May 10, 2012
      A conventional political view of President Obama’s statement of support in favor of gay marriage would suggest that it was a very risky political maneuver.  After all, polling has demonstrated repeatedly that most Americans are opposed to gay marriage–and it is always risky for the president to take a minority position in an election year, […]
      Mike
    • Who Are You? May 4, 2012
      Self-identity is complicated–even for a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) like me.  I generally list myself as white or Caucasian.  And I am–mostly.  That is certainly how the rest of the world interacts with me–because that’s what the rest of the world assumes me to be, based on my appearance.  And the majority of my ancestors came […]
      Mike