ABSTRACT
Epistemic conceptions of democracy hold that at least part of what justifies democracy is that democracies tend to make good, efficient, or just decisions. But the puzzle is explaining why democracies tend to do so. The “wisdom of the crowd” view claims that while individual voters are not particularly reliable, somehow they are smart in the aggregate. The “wisdom of the process” view instead holds that certain features of modern democratic governments – such as the separation of powers, checks and balances, the party system, contestatory elections, technocratic bureaucracies, special interest politics, or a combination of such factors – tend to result in good outcomes. This essay argues that the evidence supports the wisdom of the process view but not the wisdom of the crowd view.
