Dr Joseph Mazor

This course is available on the MSc in Applicable Mathematics, MSc in Political Science and Political Economy and MSc in Political Theory. This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

No prior knowledge of political theory, social choice theory, or of any specific mathematical discipline is required.

This course provides an introduction to the current debates in democratic theory. The course also introduces students to key social choice theorems, such as Arrow's Impossibility Theorem.  Responses to these theorems from the normative democratic theory literature are explored.  The course covers central debates in contemporary democratic theory, including deliberative versus aggregative democracy, the plausibility of epistemic justifications for democracy, the problems of democratic citizenship, and the threat of tyranny of the majority. While all students are required to understand the key social choice theorems introduced in the course, the focus will be on the implications of these theorems for normative democratic theory rather than their mathematical details.

20 hours of seminars in the LT. 4 hours of seminars in the ST.

Students will be expected to write a formative essay. Feedback will be given on this essay, but it does not count towards final assessment.  Students will also have the option to submit an outline for the assessed essay for comments.  The outline itself will not be assessed.

Sen, Amartya (1998) “The Possibility of Social Choice”, Nobel Lecture; Riker, William H. (1982/2003) “Social Choice Theory and Constitutional Democracy”, Chapter 7; Cohen, Joshua (1986) “An Epistemic Conception of Democracy,” Ethics, 97(1) 26-38; Amy Gutmann & Dennis Thompson (1996) Democracy and Disagreement; Christian List (2006), “The Discursive Dilemma and Public Reason”, Ethics 116(2): 362-404

Exam (67%, duration: 2 hours) in the main exam period.
Essay (33%, 2500 words) in the LT.

The examination will be a two-hour unseen written examination in the normal Summer Term exam period. The assessed essay consist of up to 2500 words on a topic assigned by the course teacher.