Democratic Theory and the Public Interest: Condorcet and Rousseau Revisited

1 December 1989

journal article
Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in American Political Science Review

Vol. 83 (4) , 1317-1340
https://doi.org/10.2307/1961672

Abstract

Bernard Grofman and Scott Feld argued in the June 1988 issue of thisReviewthat Jean-Jacques Rousseau's contributions to democratic political theory could be illuminated by invoking the theorizing of one of his eighteenth-century contemporaries, the Marquis de Condorcet, about individual and collective preferences or judgments. Grofman and Feld's claims about collective consciousness and the efficacy of the public interest provoke debate. One focus of discourse lies in the application of Condorcet's jury theorem to Rousseau's theory of the general will. In this controversy David M. Estlund and Jeremy Waldron in turn raise a variety of issues of theory and interpretation; Grofman and Feld then extend their argument, and propose clarifications.

Keywords

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