Abstract
Democratic alternation in power involves uncontrolled policy experiments. One party is elected on one policy platform that it then implements. Things may go well or badly. When another party is elected in its place, it implements a different policy. In imposing policies on the whole community, parties in effect conduct non-randomized trials without control groups. In this paper, we endorse the general idea of policy experimentation but we also argue that it can be done better by deploying in policymaking randomized controlled trials. We focus primarily on the democratic benefits of using randomized trials in policymaking and on how they can enhance the democratic legitimacy of policy. We argue that randomized trials resonate well with three key democratic principles: non-arbitrariness, revisability and public justification. Randomized trials’ contribution to non-arbitrariness and revisability is not unique; other types of evidence can advance these democratic principles as well. But through their peculiar democratic scrutability, randomized trials are well-equipped to contribute to the public justifiability of policy.
Funding source: Macquarie University Research Fellowship provided to Ana Tanasoca.
Acknowledgements
We thank Bob Goodin, Jeevan Haikerwal, John Langmore and participants at a Melbourne University symposium on ‘Social Liberalism in Contested Space’ for valuable comments on earlier drafts.
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Research funding: Ana Tanasoca acknowledges financial support from a Macquarie University Research Fellowship.
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Special Issue: Legitimacy; Guest Editors: Matthias Brinkmann and Anthony Taylor
- Editorial
- Introduction to Special Issue
- Articles
- Persons, Agents and Wantons
- Political Legitimacy: What’s Wrong with the Power-Liability View?
- Does the Free Group Agency Account of Legitimacy Require Democracy?
- Applying Different Concepts and Conceptions of Legitimacy to the International Level: Service, Free Group Agents, and Autonomy
- Legitimacy Revisited: Moral Power and Civil Disobedience
- Regular Articles
- The Democratic Virtues of Randomized Trials
- Torture and Trolleys: Accepting the Nearly Absolute Wrongness of Philanthropic Torture of a Perpetrator
- Do Promises Towards Fossil Fuel Owners Matter?
- Does a State’s Right to Control Borders Justify Harming Refugees?
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Special Issue: Legitimacy; Guest Editors: Matthias Brinkmann and Anthony Taylor
- Editorial
- Introduction to Special Issue
- Articles
- Persons, Agents and Wantons
- Political Legitimacy: What’s Wrong with the Power-Liability View?
- Does the Free Group Agency Account of Legitimacy Require Democracy?
- Applying Different Concepts and Conceptions of Legitimacy to the International Level: Service, Free Group Agents, and Autonomy
- Legitimacy Revisited: Moral Power and Civil Disobedience
- Regular Articles
- The Democratic Virtues of Randomized Trials
- Torture and Trolleys: Accepting the Nearly Absolute Wrongness of Philanthropic Torture of a Perpetrator
- Do Promises Towards Fossil Fuel Owners Matter?
- Does a State’s Right to Control Borders Justify Harming Refugees?