Citizen Tax Juries: Democratizing Tax Enforcement after the Panama Papers

Arlen, Gordon

doi:10.1177/00905917211018007

Cited by 10 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 55 publications

(59 reference statements)

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“…Plebeian republicans argue that, because of their allegiance to a “realist” vision of politics, we should conceive the conflict between the few and the many to be of a socio-ontological kind (Vergara 2020a, 242)—to wit, a conflict that is said to be factual, inescapable , and unavoidable (e.g., Arlen 2022, 2; Green 2016, 84; Vergara 2020b, 236). 12 Such an idea has substantial theoretical and practical implications.…”

Section: The Egalitarian Case For Class-specific Political Institutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This paper meets this need by defending one specific anti-oligarchic proposal: constitutionalising class-specific political institutions (henceforth CSIs). Mostly championed by so-called plebeian republicans (e.g., Arlen 2019, 2022; Arlen and Rossi 2021; Hamilton 2018; Jörke 2016; McCormick 2011; Mulvad and Stahl 2019; Mulvad and Popp-Madsen 2022), CSIs seek to politically empower the economically dispossessed by excluding wealthy agents from some forms of political decision-making—what I call the exclusion condition . But many egalitarians reject CSIs on the grounds that the exclusion condition is incompatible with some of their central normative commitments—in particular, with the value of formal political equality (Urbinati 2011, 168, 2021, 160; Vergara 2020a, 228).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 6. Other examples are Smith and Owen’s (2011) application of the exclusion condition to democratic innovations, such as mini-publics, direct legislation and participatory budgeting, Jörke’s (2016) class-specific referenda, or Arlen’s (2022) “citizen tax juries.” …”

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An Egalitarian Case for Class-Specific Political Institutions

Harting

2023

Political Theory

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Political theorists concerned with ways to counteract the oligarchic tendencies of representative government have recently paid more attention to the employment of “class-specific institutions” (CSIs)—that is, political institutions that formally exclude wealthy elites from decision-making power. This article disputes a general objection levelled against the justifiability of CSIs, according to which their democratic credentials are outweighed by their explicit transgression of formal political equality—what I call the political equality objection. I claim that, although CSIs do not satisfy political equality fully, their exclusionary thrust is inter alia justified in virtue of the fact that they unfold against the background of badly ordered, class-divided societies. Parallel to recent arguments in nonideal theory arguing for the priority of the right to resist economic oppression over the protection of private property rights, access to the empowering properties of CSIs should take priority over the full satisfaction of formal political equality. Yet, I also claim that the justification of CSIs depends on their orientation toward overcoming class divisions because, otherwise, we might end up wrongly naturalizing those divisions—a conclusion that needs to be avoided to reply to the political equality objection. The result is, I believe, a convincing egalitarian case for the democratic justifiability of CSIs.

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Section: The Egalitarian Case For Class-specific Political Institutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An Egalitarian Case for Class-Specific Political Institutions

Harting

2023

Political Theory

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“…As Melissa Lane (2020) points out, indeed, one notable function of randomly selected citizens in ancient Athens was to audit certain officeholders upon exiting power. The same principle could be applied to others with vast private power—as, for instance, in Gordon Arlen's (2021) proposal for empowering citizen tax juries that would investigate and sanction tax avoidance by extremely wealthy actors. At the municipal level, meanwhile, sortition‐based councils could review decisions about public contracts, tax incentives, or police departments (Táíwò 2020).…”

Section: The Structure Of Citizen Oversight: Sortition As Anti‐corrup...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sortition as Anti‐Corruption: Popular Oversight against Elite Capture

Bagg

2022

American J Political Sci

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Random selection for political office-or "sortition"-is increasingly seen as a promising tool for democratic renewal. Critics worry, however, that replacing elected and appointed officials with randomly selected citizens would only exacerbate elite manipulation of political processes. This article argues that sortition can contribute to democratic renewal, but that its genuine promise is obscured by the excessive ambition and misplaced focus of prevailing models. Casting random selection as a route to accurate representation of the popular will, most contemporary proposals require randomly selected citizens to perform legislative tasks, whose open-endedness grants substantial discretion to elite agenda setters and facilitators. The real democratic promise of sortition-based reforms, I argue, lies in obstructing elite capture at critical junctures: a narrower task of oversight that creates fewer opportunities for elite manipulation. In such contexts, the benefits of empowering ordinary people-resulting from their immunity to certain distorting influences on career officials-plausibly outweigh the risks.A mid declining faith in familiar democratic institutions, the premodern practice of random selection for public office-or "sortition"-has attracted growing attention from scholars and reformers, as a powerful corrective for elite domination of political processes (Gastil and Wright 2019; Guerrero 2014; Landemore 2020). Yet others doubt sortition-based reforms could effectively confront contemporary democratic crises (e.g., Lafont 2019), and some suspect they would make matters worse (Landa and Pevnick 2021; Umbers 2021). Weighing concerns on all sides, this article argues that sortition does have a unique and important role to play in enhancing democracy, but that its potential is obscured by the excessively ambitious models favored by contemporary proponents. It therefore advances a revisionist account of the real but limited promise of lotteries as a tool for democratic reform: sortition as anti-corruption.As advocates of sortition have long pointed out, conventional methods for choosing public officials exhibit several pervasive pathologies that could be mitigated with random selection. First, wealthy elites and other powerful private actors can often ensure that officials chosen through election or appointment are sympathetic to their interests. Second, career officials are susceptible to certain distinctive incentives, which wealthy and powerful interests can use to pressure them after they are selected. Third, the class of political elites from which officials are drawn also exhibits pervasive biases and blind spots. By insulating policy processes from all three forms of capture, random selection of officials can substantially advance democracy.Given the risks of entrusting key political decisions entirely to ordinary citizens with little experience or expertise, however, we must also be careful not to overstate the democratic potential of sortition. As I demonstrate, more specifically, politically inexperien...

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“…Importantly, however, the liberal orientation recognizes the dangers of the populist tendency to stray too far from these same procedural norms. In contexts that are highly oligarchic, liberal plebeians can pursue democratic innovations, such as new forms of citizen assembly and oversight, that empower ordinary people to exert more formal political influence (Arlen 2022;McCormick 2011;Vergara 2020). Such reform proposals are weapons in the democratic arsenal.…”

Section: Conclusion: Mill and Liberal Plebeianism Todaymentioning

confidence: 99%

Liberal Plebeianism: John Stuart Mill on Democracy, Oligarchy, and Working-Class Mobilization

Arlen

2022

Am Polit Sci Rev

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How should democratic societies address inequality in an age of plutocratic encroachment and populist indignation? What role should popular movements play in progressive reform efforts? This article turns to the nineteenth-century liberalism of John Stuart Mill for insights on an essential challenge facing democracy today: how to mobilize social movements against intensifying oligarchic threats while safeguarding liberal-democratic values. I advance a novel reading of Mill as a proponent of “liberal plebeianism”—that is, as an activist-theorist who confronted the threat of oligarchy by promoting working-class mobilization within a liberal, parliamentary framework. I trace two discourses within Mill’s writings and speeches: an antioligarchic discourse focused on countering “sinister interests” and a mobilization discourse focused on working-class incorporation. Both follow from Mill’s conviction that liberal reformers should operate as “tribunes of the poor.” This reading helps to clarify Mill’s contested legacy and provides potential resources for understanding how a plebeian orientation might enliven liberal democracy today.

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Citizen Tax Juries: Democratizing Tax Enforcement after the Panama Papers

Cited by 10 publications

References 55 publications

An Egalitarian Case for Class-Specific Political Institutions

An Egalitarian Case for Class-Specific Political Institutions

Sortition as Anti‐Corruption: Popular Oversight against Elite Capture

Liberal Plebeianism: John Stuart Mill on Democracy, Oligarchy, and Working-Class Mobilization

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