Cathrine Holst

What is epistocracy

The role of knowledge in political decision-making has been a central topic in political theory and social science for centuries. One central branch of these discussions has focused on the role of religious knowledge and authority in political rule and variations of “theocracy” or “rule of priests”.1 However, the central knowledge basis of a society or a political system is not necessarily of a religious kind. Arguably, in many contemporary societies the most crucial knowledge source is scientific and professional knowledge.

Jürgen Habermas on public reason and religion: do religious citizens suffer an asymmetrical cognitive burden, and should they be compensated?

In his recent writings, Jürgen Habermas asks how the liberal constitutional principle of separation between church and state, religion and politics, should be understood. The problem, he holds, is that a liberal state guarantees equal freedom for religious communities to practise their faith, while at the same time shielding the political bodies that take collectively binding decisions from religious influences. This means that religious citizens are asked to justify their political statements independently of their religious views, resulting in a burden that secular citizens do not experience. To compensate, Habermas demands from secular citizens that they open their minds to the possible truth content of religion, enter into dialog and contribute to the translation of religious reasons into generally acceptable reasons. This article focuses on Habermas’s assumption that religious citizens suffer an asymmetrical cognitive burden that should be compensated, and his claim that his approach to religion in the public sphere is less restrictive than that of John Rawls.

The Costs and Benefits of Descriptive Representation: Women’s Quotas, Variations in State Feminism and the Fact of Reasonable Pluralism

The chapter discusses the costs and benefits of descriptive representation under state feminism in the light of institutional variation and the fact of reasonable normative disagreement. Women-centred and intersectional state feminism, state feminism inside and outside a welfare state context, and state feminism more and less democratized are compared, and it is argued that from the cost side, descriptive representation is more recommendable in a democratized, intersectional state feminist regime than in a women-centred technocratic one, whereas the effects of the welfare state variable on descriptive representation costs are more mixed. On the benefit side, intersectionality, welfare state and democratization seem to deliver several of the same goods as descriptive representation, raising the question of whether descriptive representation is at all recommendable, given what we know of its costliness. In the end, there is however a set of remaining pro arguments suggesting that descriptive representation produces some exclusive benefits. The closer assessment of pros and cons will however vary with normative position and more specifically with which conceptions of democracy and equality one subscribes to.