Ryan Pevnick

There is broad disagreement about campaign finance reform, in part, because there is disagreement about the goals that should guide it. The most common approaches focus on the importance of preventing corruption or promoting equal opportunity for political influence. Unfortunately, such accounts tend not to be rooted in a deeper account of democratic theory that can effectively explain, and situate, these goals. This paper sketches an account of representative democracy’s appeal that can explain the importance of reducing corruption and promoting equal opportunity for political influence. Importantly, however, this explanation also implies the importance of broader considerations related to the effective functioning of the system of representation that are oftentimes ignored in debate about campaign finance (e.g., facilitating effective accountability, electoral selection, and voter competence). At least from the perspective of democratic theory, these additional goals – and not just worries about corruption or equal opportunity for political influence – should shape our evaluation of systems of campaign finance. The paper, then, develops a comprehensive framework for evaluating systems of campaign finance by connecting such evaluation to the underlying reasons that might lead one to accept representative democracy.

In light of representative democracy’s failures, from an inability to effectively address pressing problems to the yawning economic inequality and deep polarization that it sustains, the need for reform is obvious and urgent. In the democratic theory literature, there is growing interest in the potential of lottery-based political institutions as replacements for traditional forms of electoral democracy. Alexander Guerrero’s Lottocracy (Oxford University Press, 2024) is among the most interesting, challenging, and provocative arguments for lottery-based political institutions. Engaging with its arguments is a valuable opportunity to assess where the case for such institutions stands. In this critical essay, we develop concerns about (1) the critique of representative democracy that has given rise to interest in lottery-based solutions, and (2) the potential of lottery-based solutions to solve the problems that ail representative democracies.

In light of mounting concerns about democratic backsliding, Rawls’s work – which has an unusual focus on considerations of stability – is now being mined for insights about democratic fragility. This paper begins by arguing that the key mechanism underlying Rawls’s account of stability cannot, consistent with a proper recognition of the burdens of judgment, explain what makes democratic stability possible. It is, therefore, not well-positioned to help us to think productively about how to mitigate the risk of backsliding. Building on an influential literature in political science, I describe an alternative way of thinking about what enables democratic stability that focuses on the importance of giving key actors self-interested reasons for compliance. This account provides a more productive framework for understanding the causes, and thinking about how to mitigate the risk, of backsliding. It should, therefore, contribute to how we evaluate political institutions and proposed reforms.

Faced with the failures of existing democracies, many democratic theorists conclude from recent empirical work in political science critical of the functioning of electoral institutions that citizens are too ignorant to hold office-holders to account and that representative democracies are not responsive to ordinary citizens. We argue that these conclusions are unwarranted. They hinge on highly contestable interpretations of the work in question and conflict with important contrary theoretical and empirical findings that democratic theorists have ignored. If our argument is convincing, it should weaken the case for alternative regime types (e.g., lottocracy or epistocracy), which rests in part on empirically grounding the assertion that representative democracies cannot deliver meaningful accountability. Our argument also highlights the importance of engaging with the social-scientific literature in a more careful and wide-ranging manner.

This book explores the constraints which justice imposes on immigration policy. Like liberal nationalists, Ryan Pevnick argues that citizens have special claims to the institutions of their states. However, the source of these special claims is located in the citizenry's ownership of state institutions rather than in a shared national identity. Citizens contribute to the construction and maintenance of institutions, and as a result they have special claims to these institutions and a limited right to exclude outsiders. Pevnick shows that the resulting view justifies a set of policies - including support for certain types of guest worker programs - which is distinct from those supported by either liberal nationalists or advocates of open borders. His book provides a framework for considering a number of connected topics including issues related to self-determination, the scope of distributive justice and the significance of shared national identity.

Many political controversies involve conflicts between civil liberties and other important social goals. The orthodox view in liberal political theory is that civil liberties must be given strict priority over competing social goals because of the importance of the interests advanced by such liberties and/or their role in upholding the status of citizens. This paper criticizes both lines of argument. Interest-based arguments fail because we are sometimes willing to sacrifice the very fundamental interests of some citizens in order to advance large collections of lower priority interests. This shows that civil liberties cannot have strict priority over other social goals just because of the importance of the interests that they protect. Meanwhile, because considerations of status are often at stake on both sides of conflicts between important civil liberties and other social goals, their importance cannot provide reason to give strict priority to such liberties. These arguments cast doubt on the view that civil liberties ought to have strict priority over other social goals