Democracy, Meritocracy and Social Media

这个项目的动机是对民主政治的两个挑战：(a)不稳定的决策能力：民主政府的决策能力不是稳定的，因为它们有时产生民粹主义、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)社交媒体的统治：社交媒体平台（如Facebook、Twitter、TikTok、YouTube）已成为公民获取信息的主要手段，因此有能力操纵个人对其他公民、政府和选举候选人的看法，从而影响他们的政治选择。在2022-23年，我的学术活动将集中在这些挑战上。特别是，我将撰写四篇与第一个挑战相关的期刊文章，以及两篇与第二个挑战相关的文章。这六篇文章中有五篇的主要框架或论点主要是在我的博士论文《走向民主-选贤任能：对民主-选贤任能辩论的反思》中发展起来的。本文批判性地评价了政治精英的论点。对于大量借鉴中国政治理念的政治精英来说，民主不稳定的决策能力最好的解决办法是，让民主选举的核心行政和/或立法机构官员受到限制，如果不是被一些任人唯贤的官员所取代，这些官员是通过考试、面试、同行推荐、官僚绩效评估等方式选出的，所有这些都是为了评估一个人的领导能力(Bai, 2013; 2020；2021年;贝尔,2009;2013年;2015年;2017年;Bell and Wang, 2020；陈,2013;2014年;风扇,2013;江,2013)。在此背景下，我将在2022-23:1研究以下问题。个人有资格获得政治权力意味着什么？对于一个值得拥有政治权力的人来说，她是否拥有我们通常与有能力的领导者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优点主张？政治精英面临的一个挑战是，他们的制度建议违背了关系平等的理想，关系平等被理解为没有等级的社会/政治关系。把更多的政治权力交给有能力的人，政治精英们没有认真对待关系平等。这个挑战有多吸引人？政治精英的制度建议的局限性是什么，这大大削弱了民主选举官员的决策权？我们不应该接受他们的制度建议，为什么以及如何利用选拔制度（即随机选择公职人员）和政治审议来解决政治精英对选举政治提出的担忧？政治上的精英政治与贵族政治的理念相呼应。柏拉图、约翰·斯图亚特·密尔等人主张，政治权力应该根据政治知识/能力进行分配。精英政治的不同含义是什么？它与政治精英政治有何不同？在反对政治精英主义时，民主的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，当我们将这些理想应用于社交媒体的统治时，会有什么影响呢？考虑到这些理想，社交媒体在哪些方面影响政治制度的合法性？社交媒体平台在什么条件下可以允许对用户的言论进行监管？

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?