Last week, the House Judiciary Committee passed the Private Property Rights Protection Act, which would prevent local governments that engage in Kelo-style economic development takings from receiving federal economic development funds. As I explained in a post last year (which explains the bill in more detail), this legislation has been kicking around Congress since 2005. […]
Archive | Political Ignorance
Political Ignorance and Partisan Bias Go Down When Survey Respondents Are Rewarded for Correct Answers
By Ilya Somin on June 5, 2013 6:24 pm in Democracy and Political Ignorance, Political Ignorance, Public Opinion, Voting With Your Feet
Many studies show that there is widespread political ignorance, with large percentages of the public ignorant of fairly basic facts. In addition, voters’ perception of the facts is often heavily influenced by partisan bias. For example, Republicans overestimate the rates of inflation and unemployment when there is a Democratic president, while Democrats have the opposite […]
Public Ignorance About How Government Policy Works
By Ilya Somin on June 4, 2013 7:02 pm in Democracy and Political Ignorance, Growth of Government, Political Ignorance, Voting With Your Feet
NPR reports on an interesting recent article by psychologist Phil Fernbach and his coauthors, which finds that public ignorance about the details of policy has an important impact on voters’ political views: Should the United States impose unilateral sanctions on Iran for its nuclear program? Should we raise the retirement age for Social Security? Should […]
Penalties for Underperforming Politicians
By Ilya Somin on May 29, 2013 11:15 am in Democracy and Political Ignorance, Political Ignorance, Politics, Public Choice
Law professor Glenn Reynolds (AKA Instapundit) has an interesting column in USA Today advocating that we increase penalties for politicians who do a poor job in office: As scandals explode across Washington… one thing that I’ve noticed is that the people involved don’t seem to suffer much…. Government officials are happy making and executing plans […]
Obama Adviser Realizes that the Size of Government Matters After All
In his first Inaugural Address, President Obama famously said that we should not ask “whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works.” I criticized this indifference to the size of government in one of my very first posts of the Obama Presidency. More recently, however, longtime Obama adviser David Axelrod […]
Upcoming Radio Appearance Discussing my Forthcoming Book Democracy and Political Ignorance
Next Monday at 7 AM eastern time (probably rebroadcasting at that time in other time zones), I will be on Stand Up! with Pete Dominick on Sirius XM Satellite Radio, discussing my forthcoming book Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter, which will be published by Stanford University Press in early fall (probably […]
Public Ignorance About Obamacare
A recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll (Kaiser is one of the leading pollsters focusing on health care issues) finds that 42% of Americans are unaware that the Affordable Care Act is still the law of the land. Kaiser reports that that figures includes “12 percent who believe the law has been repealed by Congress, 7 […]
Three Upcoming Talks in New York City
By Ilya Somin on April 8, 2013 11:20 am in 17th Amendment, Democracy, Federalism, Political Ignorance
This coming week, on Thursday and Friday, I will be doing three different two talks in New York City, two at NYU Law School, and one at Columbia Law School. On Thursday, April 11, from 12:10 to about 1:10, Columbia law Professor Theodore Shaw and I will be debating affirmative action and the Supreme Court’s […]
Forthcoming Article on Voter Errors in Attributing Responsibility to Public Officials
In a forthcoming article I coauthored with economists Bryan Caplan, Eric Crampton, and Wayne Grove, we find that voters routinely make major mistakes in attributing responsibility for a variety of policy outcomes to different branches and levels of government. This undermines voters’ ability to properly reward and punish political incumbents for their performance. The article […]
Prediction Markets and Political Ignorance
In two recent posts, guest-blogger John McGinnis makes a strong case that the US government should legalize prediction markets, that these markets are valuable sources of information, and that claims that prediction markets can easily be “manipulated” are overblown. I agree completely on all counts. Nevertheless, I am somewhat pessimistic that prediction markets will do […]
Reflections on John McGinnis’ Accelerating Democracy
By Ilya Somin on March 29, 2013 11:45 am in Democracy, Federalism, Political Ignorance, Voting With Your Feet
Guest blogger John McGinnis’ new book Accelerating Democracy is an outstanding analysis of the ways in which modern technology and social science can improve the quality of decision-making in government and society. It is probably the most important book on that subject in a long time. Much of John’s thesis is compelling. He is right […]
Upcoming George Mason University Panel on the Tea Party and Voter Rationality
On Monday April 1, I will be speaking at a George Mason University School of Law panel on the Tea Party movement and voter rationality. Lots of data show that voters are often ignorant about politics and highly biased in their evaluation of the information they do know. The panel will focus on the extent […]
Upcoming Talk on Democracy and Political Ignorance at Campbell University
This Thursday at 6 PM, I will be speaking about my forthcoming book Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter (Stanford University Press) at Campbell University in North Carolina. The event wil lbe held in the Hartness Lecture Hall in the Science Building. The book itself will be published this fall. It argues […]
Science, Political Ignorance, and Deference to “Authoritative” Experts
By Ilya Somin on March 6, 2013 7:39 pm in Junk Science and Quackspertise, Political Ignorance, Politicizing Science, Public Opinion
Economist David Friedman has an insightful post on the problems inherent in deferring to the views of “authoritative” scientific bodies: A pattern I have observed in a variety of public controversies is the attempt to establish some sort of official scientific truth, as proclaimed by a suitable authority—a committee of the National Academy of Science, […]
Transparency and Political Ignorance
Jerry Brito, a technology policy expert at the Mercatus Center, has an interesting essay describing his loss of faith in the idea that increasing government transparency will necessarily lead to smaller government or better policy: The theory that government transparency, and in particular better access to government spending data, will lead to limited government is […]