The Journal of Public and International Affairs
Published since 1886 by the Academy of Political Science
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pp. 233-254
Creating Better Heuristics for the Presidential Primary: The Citizen Assembly
Heather K. Gerken and Douglas B. Rand propose creating citizen assemblies to vet presidential hopefuls in order to give low-information voters a useful heuristic for casting their votes. Their conceptual claim is that citizen assemblies should be of interest to the vast swaths of political science preoccupied with making representative democracy work. By shearing away the deliberative baggage that has long accompanied proposals like this one, the authors highlight the role that citizen assemblies can play in helping low-information voters make sensible choices.
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