Formal Democratic Theory Workshop

Join us for the Formal Democratic Theory Workshop organised as part of the ‘Cohesion and Deliberative Decision-Making’ project, which is based at the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science (CPNSS) at LSE.

This workshop brings together researchers in philosophy, politics and economics who work on questions in formal democratic theory.

The goal is to explore the contribution that democratic decision-making methods can make to social cohesiveness.

The workshop does so by investigating the properties of voting methods and electoral institutions, and by developing models of deliberation that can help us understand the mechanisms by which deliberation changes attitudes. The workshop is part of the Cohesion and Deliberative Decision-Making subproject of LSE’s Cohesive Capitalism programme.

This is an in-person event only. Participants are expected to have some affinity with formal results and models. If you are interested in participating, please contact the organiser Suzanne Bloks, s.bloks@lse.ac.uk.

Date: 2-3 June 2025

Venue: Vera Anstey Room and SAL 1.05, LSE Campus

Programme and more information: Fomal Democratic Theory Workshop Programme_2025

Programme:

Day 1: 2 June 2025
Location: Vera Anstey Room
10:30 – 11:00: Welcome Coffee
11:00 – 12:00: Suzanne Bloks (LSE): “Random Electoral Constituencies as Majoritarian Innovation”
12:00 – 13:00: Daniel Wodak (University of Pennsylvania): “Condorcet and Convergence”
13:00 – 14:00: Lunch Break
14:00 – 15:00: Bele Wollesen (Leibniz Universität Hannover): “On Equality, Power and Strategic Voting”
15:00 – 16:00: Shira Ahissar (LSE): “Direct or Representative Voting – it depends on the type of truth we track”
16:00 – 16:15: Coffee Break
16:15 – 17:15: Sean Ingham (UCSD): “Deliberative Democracy and Arrow’s IIA Conditions”
18:30 – 20:00: Popper Lecture by Peter Godfrey-Smith (University of Sydney)
20:00 onwards: Dinner (Honey & Co)

Day 2: 3 June
Location: SAL 1.05

9:00 – 9:30 Welcome Coffee
9:30 – 10:30: Frederik van de Putte (Rotterdam University): “Claim Strength Problems, Mixed Rules, and Transfer Axioms”
10:30 – 10:45: Coffee Break
10:45 – 11:45: Brian Hill (CNRS): “Confidence, consensus and aggregation”
11:45 – 12:45: Davide Grossi (Groningen University): “Deliberative Consensus”
12:45 – 13:45: Lunch Break
13:45 – 14:45: Laura Engel (Universität Hamburg): “Misrepresenting Epistemic Dependence Relations in Group Deliberation”
14:45 – 15:45: Richard Bradley (LSE): “Giving reasons their force: the role of priority in deliberative updates”
15:45: Closing and Coffee