Rethinking Political Equality
Author: Kuo-Hsien Hsu
Abstract / Chinese PDF Download
As a fundamental presumption of democracy, political equality maintains thateveryone is to be regarded and treated as political equal. But the pursuit of politicalequality, when driven to extremes, provokes immense difficulty in improving thequality of collective decision. Without doubt, John Stuart Mill’s advocacy of pluralvoting testified this weighty worry in its traditional form. This essay tries toscrutinize the true meaning of political equality, especially in its participation side.The essay also attempts to assert that the notion of political equality that levels offall the differences and takes equal influence as its goal is not a desirable one.Besides, a modern and modified version of plural voting is presented to beconsidered by democracies that face turmoil of populist origins.