Differential Voting Weights and Relational Egalitarianism
| Author | Andreas Bengtson |
| Date | 01 November 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321719889870 |
| Published date | 01 November 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2020
Article
Political Studies
2020, Vol. 68(4) 1054 –1070
Differential Voting Weights
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321719889870
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Andreas Bengtson
Abstract
Two prominent relational egalitarians, Elizabeth Anderson and Niko Kolodny, object to giving
people in a democratic community differential voting weights on the grounds that doing so would
lead to unequal relations between them. Their claim is that deviating from a “one-person, one-
vote” scheme is incompatible with realizing relational egalitarian justice. In this article, I argue
that they are wrong. I do so by showing that people can relate as moral, epistemic, social, and
empirical equals in a scheme with differential voting weights. I end the article by showing that from
the perspective of relational egalitarianism, it is sometimes true that differential voting weights are
more just than equal voting weights.
Keywords
relational egalitarianism, democracy, voting weights, Elizabeth Anderson
Accepted: 31 October 2019
Introduction
One apparent objection to giving people in a democratic community different voting
weights is that doing so leads to unequal relations between them. Suppose my vote counts
for one, whereas another person’s vote counts for two. Does such proportionality not cre-
ate unequal relations between us in that she seems to have decision-making power over
me? Such a scheme expanded throughout society would appear to constitute a hierarchi-
cal society in which people do not relate as equals. As Kolodny (2014: 291), a prominent
relational egalitarian, points out: “if a procedure gives anyone a say, it should give every-
one an equal say.” Anderson (1999: 318), probably the most prominent relational egalitar-
ian, agrees, asserting that “each citizen is entitled to the same number of votes in an
election as everyone else.”1
Although it might seem so, I want to argue that differential voting weights, given dif-
ferent stakes,2 do not hinder the possibility of equal relations in a democratic community.
My main claim is, thus, that if you are a relational egalitarian, you can support differential
Department of Political Science, Aarhus BSS, Aarhus Universitet, Aarhus, Denmark
Corresponding author:
Andreas Bengtson, Department of Political Science, Aarhus BSS, Aarhus Universitet, Bartholins Allé 7,
DK—8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
Email: anbe@ps.au.dk
Bengtson
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voting weights in democratic decision-making. In that sense, I break with “one person,
one vote,” a central tenet in democratic theory, on behalf of relational egalitarianism.3
In order to investigate the relationship between relational egalitarianism and differen-
tial voting weights, I ask: Are differential voting weights in democratic decision-making
compatible with relational egalitarianism? The question considers whether it is possible
to relate as equals (in whatever sense demanded by relational egalitarianism) when peo-
ple’s votes are given different weights in democratic decision-making. This question
leaves open whether a different scheme (i.e. equal voting weights) also makes it possible
to relate as equals in a relational egalitarian sense. Assuming this to be true and further
assuming that equal and differential voting weights realize equal relations to the same
extent, a relational egalitarian can—qua relational egalitarian—argue for either of these
as the one to realize in democratic decision-making.
It is important to note that what it is to relate as equals in an abstract sense is different
from what it is to relate as equals in a specific context (Lippert-Rasmussen, 2018: 62). My
aim is not to present an account of what it is to relate as equals in an abstract sense; while
this is definitely an important question, it is also a comprehensive task, and I set it aside
in the following.4 Instead, I investigate what it is to relate as equals in a specific context,
namely in democratic decision-making. Although it does not directly tell us what it is to
relate as equals in an abstract sense, hopefully, this investigation can help us, indirectly,
to delineate (some of) the boundaries of relational egalitarianism.
The article begins by outlining what it means to relate as equals, as laid out by Lippert-
Rasmussen (2018), and what I mean by differential voting weights (section “Relating as
Equals”). I then argue that prominent relational egalitarians have emphasized that equal
voting weights, as in “one person, one vote,” are necessary to realize equal relations in a
democratic community (section “Relational Egalitarianism and ‘One Person, One Vote’”).
In section “Differential Voting Weights and Relating as Equals,” I show that it is possible
to relate as moral, epistemic, social, and empirical equals in a democratic scheme with
differential voting weights. I conclude the discussion in section “Conclusion,” briefly
pointing out that differential voting weights might even create more equal relations than
equal voting weights in some circumstances.
Relating as Equals
Relational egalitarianism is not a single view. It is a wide variety of views with different
answers to what it means to relate as equals. As Lippert-Rasmussen (2018: 69) recently
argues,5 when we say that “X and Y relate as equals,” this is always shorthand for “X and
Y relate as equals in terms of Z,” and what Z is differs among different accounts of rela-
tional egalitarianism. To keep my investigation as open as possible in order to explore the
relationship between relational egalitarianism and differential voting weights, I do not
want to commit to a particular Z.
As Lippert-Rasmussen argues, relational egalitarians have proposed (at least) five dif-
ferent dimensions of Z, that is, of standing as equals. These are moral standing, epistemic
standing, social standing, aesthetic standing and empirical standing (Lippert-Rasmussen,
2018: 63‒69).6 Although Lippert-Rasmussen does not intend this list to be exhaustive, I
will treat it as such in the following and limit myself to investigating whether it is possible
to relate as moral, epistemic, social, and empirical equals in a democracy with differential
voting weights.7 I exclude aesthetic standing and merely assume that differential voting
weights on behalf of stakes (which I describe shortly) do not create unequal aesthetic
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Political Studies 68(4)
relations between people.8 Nor do I want to imply that voting weights are all that matter
in order to relate as equals in a democracy. But it is, nevertheless, a central aspect and one
that is interesting in itself—especially because, as described in the next section, some
relational egalitarians argue that the one-person-one-vote dictum is necessary in order to
relate as equals in a democracy.
Obviously, we can imagine various grounds upon which to give people different vot-
ing weights in democratic decision-making. Some of these are problematic from a moral
point of view, such as giving more weight to the votes of whites relative to the votes of
black people merely because they are white. As it is clearly too extensive to go through
every imaginable ground for giving differential voting weights and doing so might not be
necessary for the purpose of this article, I limit myself to a particular ground in the fol-
lowing, namely affected interests as understood in the all-affected principle.9
In its generic version, the all-affected principle says, “everyone who is affected by the
decisions of a government should have the right to participate in that government” (Dahl,
1990 [1970]: 49; Goodin, 2007: 51). As this definition is underspecified in various ways
(e.g. Arrhenius, 2018: 104), it is not helpful for the purpose of this article. Hence, I will
utilize the proportional stake version of the all-affected principle as presented by
Brighouse and Fleurbaey (2010: 150), which we can present as follows:
AAPps: Everyone who is affected by the decisions of a government should have the right to
participate in that government in proportion to their stakes.10,11
It is relevant for our purposes that they take stakes to “measure how people’s interests
are affected by the options available in the decision . . . understood in terms of human
flourishing rather than in narrow financial terms” (Brighouse and Fleurbaey, 2010: 137).
They add, “interests should be evaluated in connection with a conception of social jus-
tice” (Brighouse and Fleurbaey, 2010). This means that they measure stakes in accord-
ance with a prioritarian principle, implying that the worse-off you are, the larger stakes
you have and the more weight you get in the decision. They choose this baseline as they
want to align democracy and social justice more closely. Another possibility would be to
choose a prudential baseline, measuring stakes in accordance with what is in people’s
self-interest; this would be different from the previous baseline as it would not favor the
worst off (this might seem reasonable to those who want to separate democracy and social
justice). For the purpose of this article, I do not have to commit to a particular baseline
from which to determine stakes since no matter which (plausible) baseline we choose,
they all imply that people (sometimes) have different stakes, and that is all I need.
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