•  6
    Political Equality and Geographic Constituency
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 1-20. forthcoming.
    Geographic definitions of constituency—the set of voters eligible to vote for a representative—have been criticized by theorists and reformers as undermining democratic values. I argue, in response, that there is no categorical (or even generally applicable) reason sounding in political equality to reject geographic districts. Geographic districting systems are typically flexible enough that, when properly designed, and matched with an appropriate electoral system, they can satisfy the requireme…Read more
  •  6
    Political equality and institutional choice: lessons from Steffen Ganghof’s beyond parliamentarism and presidentialism
    Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 27 (2): 251-258. 2024.
    This comment encourages normative democratic theorists to attend to the agenda for democratic theory that Steffen Ganghof sets in Beyond Parliamentarism and Presidentialism. I discuss Ganghof’s distinction between ‘procedural’ and ‘process’ equality. I conclude with a meta-theoretical question about how theorists should think about advocacy for large-scale constitutional systems.
  •  72
    Making the All‐Affected Principle Safe for Democracy
    Philosophy and Public Affairs 50 (2): 169-201. 2022.
    Philosophy & Public Affairs, Volume 50, Issue 2, Page 169-201, Spring 2022.
  •  12
    In this essay, I make the interpretive claim that we cannot properly understand the Federalist without appreciating the extent to which the papers mount a sustained rejection of extra-constitutional democracy—practices in which people aim to assert authority over the terms of common life in ways that are not sanctioned by existing laws. I survey such practices, which were common in America before and after the Revolution. I argue that there is continuity between Publius’s justification for rejec…Read more
  •  20
    Equal Justice: Fair Legal Systems in an Unfair World, by Wilmot-SmithFrederick. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019. Pp. 256.
  •  12
    The liberal populism of Shmuel Nili’s The People’s Duty
    Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 24 (4): 616-621. 2021.
  •  15
    Democratic Equality
    Princeton University Press. 2019.
    Democracy establishes relationships of political equality, ones in which citizens equally share authority over what they do together and respect one another as equals. But in today's divided public square, democracy is challenged by political thinkers who disagree about how democratic institutions should be organized, and by antidemocratic politicians who exploit uncertainties about what democracy requires and why it matters. Democratic Equality mounts a bold and persuasive defense of democracy …Read more