Is there a public good? A prevalent view in political science is that democracy is unavoidably chaotic, arbitrary, meaningless, and impossible. Such scepticism began with Condorcet in the eighteenth century, and continued most notably with Arrow and Riker in the twentieth century. In this powerful b...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Bibliographische Detailangaben

1. Verfasser:	Mackie, Gerry (VerfasserIn)
Format:	Elektronisch E-Book
Sprache:	English
Veröffentlicht:	Cambridge Cambridge University Press 2003
Schriftenreihe:	Contemporary political theory
Schlagworte:	Democracy Stabilität Demokratie Herrschaftssystem
Online-Zugang:	BSB01 UBG01 Volltext
Zusammenfassung:	Is there a public good? A prevalent view in political science is that democracy is unavoidably chaotic, arbitrary, meaningless, and impossible. Such scepticism began with Condorcet in the eighteenth century, and continued most notably with Arrow and Riker in the twentieth century. In this powerful book, Gerry Mackie confronts and subdues these long-standing doubts about democratic governance. Problems of cycling, agenda control, strategic voting, and dimensional manipulation are not sufficiently harmful, frequent, or irremediable, he argues, to be of normative concern. Mackie also examines every serious empirical illustration of cycling and instability, including Riker's famous argument that the US Civil War was due to arbitrary dimensional manipulation. Almost every empirical claim is erroneous, and none is normatively troubling, Mackie says. This spirited defence of democratic institutions should prove both provocative and influential
Beschreibung:	Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015)
Beschreibung:	1 online resource (xvi, 483 pages)
ISBN:	9780511490293
DOI:	10.1017/CBO9780511490293