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Democracy
It is an irony that, as we seek to spread democratic institutions around
the world, many in this country bemoan the state of our own democracy.
For years scholarly work in democratic theory has investigated the foundations
of this institution and has uncovered many concerns regarding some of
its basic ideas, including voting theory. But recently, these concerns
have been matched with equally pressing ideas concerning the practical
state of our democratic society and what we should do about it, such
as increasing citizen participation in elections.
As a center devoted to both theory and practice, to argumentative rigor
and empirical research, our investigations into the meaning of democracy
cover the field. We respect the challenges of Social Choice Theory and
seek to understand its implications for democratic institutions. We
are also sympathetic to the principles of deliberative democracy and
have used deliberative polling techniques to ascertain public opinion
at the national, local, and campus level. Organizations associated with
the center, such as the Southwestern
Program for Deliberative Democracy and its CMU component,
Campus Conversations, have been used both to apply and to test the
principles of deliberative democracy.
Legitimacy and Good Governance
Our interests in democracy naturally include concerns with the sources
of legitimacy and the goals of good governance. Does majority opinion
automatically bestow legitimacy on a social choice decision? What is
the relation between good governance and social justice? Can there be
such a thing as democratic legitimacy and good governance at the international
level? And what are the implications of an answer to this for issues
such as multinational health care and climate change?
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