Democracy, Meritocracy and Social Media

该项目的动机是民主政治面临的两个挑战：(A)决策能力不稳定：民主政府的决策能力并不稳定，因为它们有时会产生民粹主义、短期主义或不一致的政策结果，对公民的生活前景产生负面影响。(B)社交媒体的主导地位：社交媒体平台(如Facebook、Twitter、TikTok、YouTube)，因为它们已成为公民获取信息的主要手段，有能力操纵个人对其他公民、政府和选举候选人的看法，从而塑造他们的政治选择。在2022-23年度，我的学术活动将集中于这些挑战。特别是，我将撰写四篇与第一个挑战有关的期刊文章，以及两篇与第二个挑战有关的文章。这六篇文章中有五篇的主要框架或论点在很大程度上是在我的博士论文《走向民主-职业精英统治：对民主-精英统治辩论的反思》中发展起来的。本文对政治精英的论据进行了批判性的评价。对于大量依赖中国政治理念的政治精英来说，解决民主决策能力不稳定的最好办法是限制核心行政和/或立法机构的民选官员，如果不是由一些通过考试、面试、同行推荐、官僚绩效评估等方式挑选出来的精英官员取代的话，这些官员都是通过考试、面试、同行推荐、官僚绩效评估等方式选出的，所有这些都旨在评估一个人的领导能力(白，2013；2020；2021；贝尔，2009；2013；2015；2017；贝尔和王，2020；Chan，2013；2014；Fan，2013；江，2013)。在此背景下，我将在2022-23年研究以下问题：1.个人配得上政治权力意味着什么？对于一个拥有政治权力的人来说，她拥有我们通常与有能力的领导人联系在一起的领导素质(例如政治知识)就足够了，或者是否有其他相关的背景和制度因素影响一个人对政治权力的价值主张？2.政治精英面临的一个挑战是，他们的制度提议违背了关系平等的理想，这被理解为缺乏等级社会/政治关系。通过将更多的政治权力赋予那些有能力的人，政治精英们未能认真对待关系平等。这一挑战有多大的说服力？3.政治精英们的体制提议有什么局限性，这些提议大大削弱了民主选举产生的官员的决策权？我们为什么以及如何利用分类制度(即随机挑选公职人员)和政治审议制度来解决政治精英们对选举政治提出的担忧，而不是接受他们的制度建议？4.政治精英制度呼应了认识论的理念。柏拉图和约翰·斯图尔特·密尔等认识论的倡导者认为，政治权力的分配应该基于政治知识/能力。书面主义的不同含义是什么？它与政治精英有何不同？5.在反对政治精英时，民主倡导者指的是各种道德理想(如政治平等、公平、公民团结、自由)。但是，当我们将这样的理想应用于社交媒体的统治时，会产生什么影响呢？考虑到这些理想，社交媒体在哪些方面影响了政治机构的合法性？6.社交媒体平台在哪些条件下可以允许监管用户的言论？

This project is motivated by two challenges to democratic politics:(a) Unstable Decision-Making Competence: The decision-making capacity of democratic governments is not stably competent, as they sometimes yield populist, short-termist or inconsistent policy outcomes that negatively affect the life prospects of citizens. (b) The Domination of Social Media: Social media platforms (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube), since they have become the major means by which citizens acquire information, have the capacity to manipulate individuals' perspectives on other citizens, the government and the candidates for elections, thereby shaping their political choice.In 2022-23, my scholarly activities will focus on these challenges. In particular, I will develop four journal articles related to the first challenge, and two articles related to the second challenge. The major framework or arguments of five out of these six articles have been largely developed in my doctoral thesis, 'Towards a Democratic-Sortitional Meritocracy: Reflections on the Democracy-Meritocracy Debate'. This thesis critically evaluates the arguments of the political meritocrats. For the political meritocrats, who draw heavily on Chinese political ideas, the unstable decision-making competence of democracy is best resolved by having the democratically elected officials of the core executive and/or legislature constrained if not replaced by some meritocratically selected officials, chosen by examinations, interviews, peer recommendations, assessments of bureaucratic performance and so on, all of which are designed to assess one's leadership abilities (Bai, 2013; 2020; 2021; Bell, 2009; 2013; 2015; 2017; Bell and Wang, 2020; Chan, 2013; 2014; Fan, 2013; Jiang, 2013). Against this backdrop, I will study the following questions in 2022-23:1. What does it mean for an individual to merit political power? For someone to merit political power, does it suffice that she possesses the leadership qualities (e.g. political knowledgeability) that we typically associate with competent leaders, or are there other relevant contextual and institutional considerations that affect one's merit claims to political power?2. One challenge to the political meritocrats is that their institutional proposals offend the ideal of relational equality, understood as the absence of hierarchical social/political relations. By giving more political power to those with merit, the political meritocrats fail to take relational equality seriously. How compelling is this challenge?3. What are the limits of the institutional proposals of the political meritocrats, which significantly weaken the decision-making power of democratically elected officials? Instead of embracing their institutional proposals, why and how should we utilise institutions of sortition (i.e. random selection of public officials) and political deliberation to address the concerns the political meritocrats raised over electoral politics?4. Political meritocracy echoes the idea of epistocracy. Advocates of epistocracy, such as Plato and John Stuart Mill, hold that the political power should be distributed based on political knowledge/competence. What are the different senses of epistocracy, and how does it differ from political meritocracy?5. In arguing against the political meritocrats, advocates of democracy refer to various moral ideals (e.g. political equality, fairness, civic solidarity, freedom). But what would be the implications when we apply such ideals to the domination of social media? With these ideals in mind, in what ways do social media affect the legitimacy of political institutions?6. What are the conditions under which social media platforms can permissibly regulate the speech of users?