Juliette Roussin (Université Laval) publie un nouvel article intitulé « Independence and democracy: Condorcet beyond the jury theorem » dans la European Journal of Political Theory.

Résumé

In democratic theory, Condorcet’s jury theorem plays an ambiguous part: a powerful justification of democracy for some, it is a predictor of democratic failings for others. This article discusses the theorem’s independence condition (according to which votes must be independent if numerous voters are to make good decisions with reasonable likelihood) in light of the conception of independence Condorcet came to develop in his political and revolutionary writings. I show that the independence condition’s implications for democracy are standardly misunderstood and that Condorcet defended a broader conception of independence, which provides sounder ground for a defense of democracy than the standard uses of the theorem suggest. For Condorcet, vote independence rests not only on voters’ independence of mind, but also on their social independence. Independence is not the precondition for political participation, as the standard uses of the theorem would have it, but the goal of democratic practice. In the comprehensive democratic ideal that Condorcet developed as the French Revolution unfolded, the conditional epistemic argument expressed in the early jury theorem thus becomes secondary.