Public Servants
In: Journal of Moral PhilosophySearch for other papers by Mario I. Juarez-Garcia in
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Search for other papers by Alexander Schaefer in
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Abstract
Several political philosophers have recently pointed out that current electoral democracies fail to facilitate accurate and reliable feedback on the performance of public officials. Rather than rejecting democracy as a hopeless ideal, we defend an institutional reform called Service Responsibility, which introduces a superior incentive structure that better aligns the interests of citizens and public officials. Service Responsibility requires increasing or decreasing the income of public officials insofar as they succeed or fail to achieve democratically chosen goals. Later, we consider an alternative institutional scheme, recently proposed by Claudio López-Guerra: Piloting Responsibility. According to this alternative proposal, public officials must utilize a public provider whenever they seek out a basic service. We show that Piloting Responsibility fails to realize the democratic ideal because it generates a perverse incentive structure for public officials. We conclude that Service Responsibility outperforms both the status quo and Piloting Responsibility as an institutional scheme for ensuring competent governance and public justification.
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| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 656 | 275 | 31 |
| Full Text Views | 192 | 13 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 315 | 29 | 0 |
Public Servants
In: Journal of Moral PhilosophySearch for other papers by Mario I. Juarez-Garcia in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Search for other papers by Alexander Schaefer in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
Several political philosophers have recently pointed out that current electoral democracies fail to facilitate accurate and reliable feedback on the performance of public officials. Rather than rejecting democracy as a hopeless ideal, we defend an institutional reform called Service Responsibility, which introduces a superior incentive structure that better aligns the interests of citizens and public officials. Service Responsibility requires increasing or decreasing the income of public officials insofar as they succeed or fail to achieve democratically chosen goals. Later, we consider an alternative institutional scheme, recently proposed by Claudio López-Guerra: Piloting Responsibility. According to this alternative proposal, public officials must utilize a public provider whenever they seek out a basic service. We show that Piloting Responsibility fails to realize the democratic ideal because it generates a perverse incentive structure for public officials. We conclude that Service Responsibility outperforms both the status quo and Piloting Responsibility as an institutional scheme for ensuring competent governance and public justification.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 656 | 275 | 31 |
| Full Text Views | 192 | 13 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 315 | 29 | 0 |
