Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Democracy is valuable not only because it treats people equally but because it is intelligent. Democracies can make effective use of knowledge, engage in experimentation, and utilize societal diversity, while also motivating political leaders towards the common good. It is against the emergence of a new democratic scepticism, however, that this book defends the intelligence of democracy. Whether it be due to ignorant voters, irrational public debate, or disconnected politicians, a growing number now argue that democracies are destined to make bad decisions. While these democratic sceptics see epistemic concerns as reasons for giving up on democracy, this book argues they are reasons to embrace it. Intelligent Democracy develops the first systemic account of democracy’s epistemic value. Unlike approaches which focus on single institutions, this view conceptualizes democracy as a network of actors which work together to produce epistemic benefits at the system level. While any one democratic body will be limited, this book analyses the divisions of labour within a broader deliberative system, and how best to combine inclusive elections, deliberative assemblies, random sortition, and the open public sphere. This systemic approach is shown to better explain democracy’s epistemic value, while more adeptly responding to the challenges posed by the new democratic scepticism. It can demonstrate democracy’s intelligence over regimes of epistocracy and political meritocracy which empower only the knowledgeable, but also overlooked proposals for granting greater powers to markets or polycentric governance. The result is a unique epistemic justification of democracy and a robust reply to democracy’s critics.</jats:p>