Social Science

“Representation means the making present of something that is nevertheless not literally present.” (Pitkin, 1967) In a representative democracy, which, minimally construed, involves a mediating assembly for political decision making, representation, implies an attempt to find the people in assembly’s political decision making. But what do we mean by

Presidential debates occupy a unique place in the American political process. Debates trace their ancestry to the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, which were actually between Senators and focused mostly on the issue of slavery. The Lincoln-Douglas debates were long, often boring, and if voting returns from Illinois counties, where debates

Investment in education in developing countries has been shown to produce a variety of desirable outcomes, including a reduction in child mortality, lower fertility rates, and lower gender inequality. Funding for education, however, suffers deeply, especially in South Asia. Given that education is a broad topic, I have split the

Politics begets cynicism, especially during the campaigning season when each politician tries to outdo the other in spouting disingenuous and sometimes patently false statements. Cynicism, in turn, becomes the aegis with which we defend our apathy. It’s all the same! Why bother when nothing changes? So, are our peregrinations

The Oregon Supreme Court defines lobbying as “influencing, or attempting to influence, legislative action through oral or written communication with legislative officials, solicitation of others to influence or attempt to influence legislative action or attempting to obtain the goodwill of legislative officials.” [see David Fidanque and Janet Arenz, Petitioners on

The following tables tally up the articles that mention “Barack Obama” or “Hillary Clinton” in their body or title. The results show that both New York Times and Washington Post cover Obama at much lower rates than “US Newspaper and Wires.” The differences are particularly significant given that most articles

Since at least James Surowiecki’s “Wisdom of the crowds,” a multitude of scholars involved in the field of epistemic democracy have taken to theorizing epistemic utility of tools like “Prediction Markets,” and even the “Wikipedia” model. Cass Sunstein, a Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, has in

First Amendment mandates that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” Over the years, the courts have construed the clause in a way that privileges political speech in its various manifestations while ruling to limit the protections afforded to commercial speech. Hence, different regulatory frameworks have emerged