Podcast - Knowledge and Expertise in Democratic Politics.

About the Talk

In this episode of the Governance Podcast Associate Director Sam DeCanio, Dr. Jonny Benson, and Professor Jason Brennan discusses the relationship between knowledge, expertise and democracy. The conversation discusses whether democracy should be understood primarily as a system involving electoral choice, or whether democracy is a type of political system incorporating additional elements such as deliberation and the rule of law. We also discuss questions regarding voter knowledge and political accountability, democracy versus rule by knowledgeable experts or the administrative state, and the types of information markets and democracy require to function effectively.

The Guest Jonny Benson is a Lecturer at University of Manchester whose research examines democratic theory with a strong connection to the interdisciplinary tradition of politics, philosophy, and economics (PPE). He is particularly interested in contemporary challenges to democracy, including the rise of anti-democratic thought, the relationship to the market economy, and issues of voter knowledge, misinformation, and political polarization. Benson’s first book, Intelligent Democracy: Answering the New Democratic Skepticism was published in 2024 by Oxford University Press. His articles have appeared in journals such as the American Political Science Review, Political Studies, Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Synthese, and Economics and Philosophy. Jason Brennan (Ph.D., 2007, University of Arizona) is the Robert J. and Elizabeth Flanagan Family Professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. He specializes in politics, philosophy, and economics. He is the editor-in-chief of Philosophy & Public Affairs, editor of Public Affairs Quarterly, and an associate editor of Social Philosophy and Policy. He is the author of 17 books: Questioning Beneficence (Routledge, 2024), with Sam Arnold, Richard Yetter Chappell, and Ryan Davis; Democracy: A Guided Tour (Oxford University Press, 2023), Debating Democracy, with Hélène Landemore (Oxford University Press, 2021), Business Ethics for Better Behavior, with William English, John Hasnas, and Peter Jaworski (Oxford University Press, 2021), Why It's OK to Want to Be Rich (Routledge Press 2020), Good Work if You Can Get It (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020); Injustice for All: America's Dysfunctional Criminal Justice System and How to Fix It, with Christopher Surprenant (Routledge, 2019); Cracks in the Ivory Tower: The Moral Mess of Higher Education, with Phil Magness (Oxford University Press, 2019); When All Else Fails: Resistance, Violence, and State Injustice (Princeton University Press, 2018); In Defense of Openness: Global Justice as Global Freedom (Oxford University Press, 2018), with Bas van der Vossen; Against Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2016); Markets without Limits, with Peter Jaworski (Routledge Press, 2016); Compulsory Voting: For and Against, with Lisa Hill (Cambridge University Press, 2014); Why Not Capitalism? (Routledge Press, 2014); Libertarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2012); The Ethics of Voting (Princeton University Press, 2011); and, with David Schmidtz, A Brief History of Liberty (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). He is co-editor, along with David Schmidtz and Bas Van der Vossen, of the Routledge Handbook of Libertarianism (Routledge, 2017).