Liquid democracy – does it work?

New research from CAGE associates explores the effectiveness of Liquid Democracy.

People often abstain from voting because they don't know enough about the issues.

New technologies such as the blockchain are making it easier to devise more complicated voting systems such as Liquid Democracy. Liquid democracy brings together the principles of direct democracy (where the voter votes directly on an issue) and representative democracy (where voters select a delegate to vote on their behalf). In a Liquid Democracy, voters have the right to vote on all issues directly or delegate their vote to someone they believe is better informed.

But does Liquid democracy lead to better informed decisions by the electorate? Amrita Dhillon, Grammateia Kotsialou, Dilip Ravindran, Dimitrios Xefteris show that, theoretically, Liquid Democracy can do better than both direct and representative democracy – even when voters are not fully informed about others' political preferences and expertise.

Publication details

Amrita Dhillon, Grammateia Kotsialou, Dilip Ravindran, Dimitrios Xefteris, Information Aggregation with Delegation of Votes, CAGE working paper (no.665)