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The jury is a paradigmatic example of a democratic institution that may be justified strictly oninstrumentalandepistemicgrounds: its ability to yield just outcomes. Yet why should we have confidence in its ability? The jury's reliability derives from the jurors' status as local experts (hierarchical equality), as well as near-universal eligibility and selection by lot (horizontal equality): This dual egalitarianism is a condition of the jury's epistemic value. Yet ordinary citizens thereby acquire an interest inepistemic respector recognition of their presumptively equal competence to judge. The instrumental value of the jury and intrinsic (respect-based) value of jury service may thus be reconciled; although trade-offs between just verdicts and respectful treatment are possible, the jury's ability to attain just verdicts may be improved by reforms generated by concerns about respectful treatment of jurors. This framework sheds light on the justification of democratic institutions more generally.

Ancient Greece has long exercised a powerful hold on the imagination of modern political science. But until fairly recently, this influence has largely been philosophical, related to the origins of many theoretical concepts—including the concept of politics itself—in the ancient world. In The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece, Josiah Ober offers a synoptic and ambitious social theoretical account of the ancient Greek world, the sources of its power, the causes of its decline, and the lessons that can be drawn from this story for contemporary social and political science. We have thus invited a range of political scientists to comment on Ober's account of classical Greece and its relevance to contemporary political inquiry.

Epistemic democracy defends the capacity of "the many" to make correct decisions and seeks to justify democracy by reference to this ability. Epistemic democrats marshal substantial evidence from the history of political thought and a set of models to support their claims. The essay assesses this evidence and argues in favor of more empirical testing. It also cautions against using the contextually limited evidence of wise decisions as a basis for justifying democratic decision making. Instead, the article sketches a "deflationary model" that relies on neither an independent standard of correctness nor the more ambitious assertions of the reliability of the mechanisms. That model, termed judgment democracy, retains epistemic democracy's attractive respect for individual judgments and concern with institutional design, while eschewing its least plausible features.

Epistemic democracy defends the capacity of 'the many' to make correct decisions and seeks to justify democracy by reference to this ability. Epistemic democrats marshal substantial evidence from the history of political thought and a set of models to support their claims. The essay assesses this evidence and argues in favor of more empirical testing. It also cautions against using the contextually limited evidence of wise decisions as a basis for justifying democratic decision making. Instead, the article sketches a 'deflationary model' that relies on neither an independent standard of correctness nor the more ambitious assertions of the reliability of the mechanisms. That model, termed judgment democracy, retains epistemic democracy's attractive respect for individual judgments and concern with institutional design, while eschewing its least plausible features. Adapted from the source document.

There may be good general grounds for the adoption of supermajoritarian thresholds, but no such general arguments can justify the selection of a specific threshold. Although the benefits of supermajority rules, especially in the context of constitutional-amendment procedures, may outweigh the costs of their ex ante indeterminacy, the technically unjustifiable nature of specific thresholds means that those who are disadvantaged under such rules can be given no rational or reasonable explanation for their defeat other than the de facto power of coordination on a threshold. Political theory has a potential remedy in cases in which good reasons are not available, and in which bad reasons (such as the desire to ensure a veto for a powerful minority) might be brought to bear: randomization. If the benefits of supermajority rules are worth the costs of arbitrariness, we may wish to randomize the choice of threshold, though the move to do so may have its own negative consequences.