Democratic Deals

Much of democratic politics involves bargaining among unequally powerful people. How, then, can the results be legitimate? Melissa Schwartzberg and Jack Knight tackle this conundrum through the lens of contract law and its remedies for unconscionable agreements. Lucidly written with a minimum of jargon, Democratic Deals combines state-of-the-art democratic theory with a rich grasp of contract law and a refreshingly realistic standpoint. It is the best book on its subject and will be required reading for theorists and practitioners alike.
-- Ian Shapiro, author of Uncommon Sense

Two of our best political theorists have made a major advance in our understanding of public law and politics. We have long known that contract analogies and bargaining theory help us to understand politics as it is, but Schwartzberg and Knight use them to develop a normative account and a vigorous defense of political bargaining in democracies. Rigorous, creative, and clear, Democratic Deals will be widely read in political science and law.
-- Tom Ginsburg, author of Democracies and International Law

Schwartzberg and Knight brilliantly reveal how a democracy can achieve equitable treatment of interests. By clarifying the principles governing the institutions that regulate bargains, they demonstrate how to overcome the asymmetric power intrinsic to all societies. Their enlightening and finely argued analysis concludes with feasible proposals for electoral, judicial, and bureaucratic reforms that would have a transformative effect on our politics.
-- Margaret Levi, coauthor of A Moral Political Economy

This landmark book integrates the normative concerns of democratic theory with the results of a half-century of empirical political science. Schwartzberg and Knight offer a holistic account of democratic political processes, from constitution-making to street-level bureaucracy, and argue convincingly for constrained bargaining as democracy’s fundamental mechanism. They show how equitable treatment of interests can ground democratic legitimacy and why institutional design belongs at the forefront of pragmatic political theory. The book is also a great read, engaging and clear, with well-chosen examples. Their policy recommendations are both bold and realistic. A must-read for political theorists and all serious students of American and comparative politics.
-- Josiah Ober, coauthor of The Civic Bargain: How Democracy Survives