The Chairman's Problem

Bibliographic Data

ID3241286
AuthorsBertrand De Jouvenel (University of California, Berkeley, corresponding author)
Year1961
Volume55
Issue2
Pages368-372
Publication date1961-06-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Political Science Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1952247
OpenAlexW2327288945
LanguageEN
Citations received9

One of the major obstacles to the progress of political theory lies in the fact that people speak of rights without paying attention to the feasibility of their exercise. I propose to raise here some elementary problems relating to the right of speech. It is one of the basic tenets of our democratic political philosophy that all people (over a given age) have an equal right of speech. Making this right operational however gives rise to difficulties which have not been faced.I shall start out with a very simple problem, which moreover has the advantage of evoking familiar pictures: this is the chairman's problem. I find myself chairman of an assembly, and regard all participants as formally equal, which commits me to treating them equally. Feeling bound by this principle, I decide as follows: the duration of the meeting is m, the number of participants n: I shall give the floor to each participant for a time m/n; thus the equal right of speech will receive practical application. Assume that the meeting is to be crowned by a vote (the time of actual voting not figuring in m): before the participants cast their equal votes, they will have had equal opportunities to influence the voting, i.e., they shall have had, insofar as depends upon me, equal voices.Now if m the duration of the meeting (in speaking time) is three hours, and if n the number of participants is 12, my procedure is susceptible of being applied: it grants the floor to each participant for a quarter of an hour. This is not a long time but still it may be enough

Art · Democracy · Duration (music · Epistemology · Feeling · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Simple (philosophy · Sociology · Voting · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Political Economy and Marxism · Political Theology and Sovereignty · Psychology · Social Psychology

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