Generative Democracy: New Foundations for Democratic Theory

Abstract This book presents a new framework for democratic theory and institutional design, directed at political theorists, philosophers, economists, and others. In this framework, a value theory of institutions has three layers: a principle of evaluation, an analysis of institutions, and a resulting evaluation of institutions. Armed with this framework, the book recasts established approaches, such as Proceduralism, Instrumentalism, and Epistemism, as value theories of institutions. It identifies a fundamental dilemma for institutional design: Should one focus on how institutions fit with people’s psychology, or on how institutions change people’s psychology? Current theorising and modelling lean to the former, often ignoring psychological change altogether. This bias must be overcome, since psychological reactions to institutions are central causes of institutional failures and the current ‘democratic crisis’. The book therefore introduces a new theory for evaluating and ultimately choosing institutions: Generativism. Generativism places psychological reactions centre stage in the assessment of institutions. This leads to a ‘generative’ defence of democracy: Suitably designed democratic social orders cause more fruitful mental changes than rival social orders. Turning to a formal analysis, the book finally shows how mental change can be incorporated into models of institutions. It introduces a general formal framework for evaluating institutions, and presents generative versions of two established research programmes: mechanism design theory in economics and epistemic social choice theory.