THE DEMOCRACY TAX - POLITICIANS' IGNORANCE AND VOTERS' LACK OF INFORMATION IN A DEMOCRATIC CONTEST, A CASE STUDY FROM THE CZECH REPUBLIC
VILEM CAP, MAREK FEURICH, MARTIN LUKAVEC
Abstract:
This paper highlights an important and neglected democracy limitation: voters make decisions based on incomplete information. This leads to inefficient or irrational decisions and applies to elections at all levels of the political system in the Western world. This paper shows that voting with incomplete information leads to the election of incompetent politicians. Testing of the Prague representatives has shown their lack of knowledge to perform their duties. The regression analysis performed does not show a statistically significant relationship between the representatives knowledge and their education or political experience. A possible solution is a sophisticated training system for elected candidates.
Keywords:
democracy, limits of democracy, competence of politicians, inefficiency of governance, rational choice, information asymmetry, education
DOI: 10.52950/SS.2024.13.1.002
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APA citation:
VILEM CAP, MAREK FEURICH, MARTIN LUKAVEC (2024). The Democracy Tax - Politicians' Ignorance and Voters' Lack of Information in a Democratic Contest, a Case Study from the Czech Republic. International Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. XIII(1), pp. 13-32. , DOI: 10.52950/SS.2024.13.1.002
Data:
Received: 5 Mar 2024
Revised: 10 Mar 2024
Accepted: 21 Mar 2024
Published: 4 Apr 2024
Copyright © 2024, Vilem Cap et al, Vilem.cap@seznam.cz