Political Meritocracy and the Troubles of Western Democracies

Abstract

Confucian meritocratic rule has been recently advocated on the basis of the economic performance of Western democracies and the political ignorance of their average voters. These arguments are grounded in the analyses of real phenomena, but they are insufficient to establish the greater effectiveness of political meritocracy over democracy. This does not mean that the principle of political meritocracy (a principle of government that aims to strengthen the role of the competent and the morally good ones) is irrelevant to the solution of some of the troubles affecting contemporary democracies. On the contrary, such a principle could play a significant role in designing auxiliary institutional mechanisms to strengthen the quality of political leadership in a democracy.