online archive
5:00PM
OCT 17 2007
Dust in citizens' eyes
From New Statesman, in defence of hypocrisy: An article on the importance of insincerity, theft of policy and hypocrisy. From Open Democracy, statistics and politics: Politicians' abuse of numbers is dust in citizens' eyes—a sceptical, informed questioning by citizens is their first line of defence; and are collective decisions a reliable route to better public judgment? James Surowiecki's influential argument about "the wisdom of crowds" provokes James Fishkin into elaborating the deliberative approach to public opinion as a means to revivify democratic processes and outcomes. An article on the science of collective decision-making. From Scientific American, an article on the genetics of politics: A study finds that biology strongly governs voter turnout.
