Jonathan Benson

I’m a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Political Theory at the University of Manchester and a member of the Manchester Centre for Political Theory (MANCEPT). I previously held a Hallsworth Research Fellowship and was a lecturer at King’s College London and Utrecht University.

My research is focused on democratic theory with a strong connection to the interdisciplinary tradition of politics, philosophy and economics (PPE). I’m particularly interested in contemporary challenges to democracy, both theoretical and practical. This has included the rise of democratic scepticism, democracy’s relationship to the market economy, issues of voter knowledge and competence, and problems of political polarization.

My first book Intelligent Democracy: Answering the new democratic scepticism was recently published by Oxford University Press, and my work has appeared in such places as American Political Science Review, Political Studies, Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Synthese, and Economics & Philosophy.

Research Interests

Democratic Theory: Deliberative democracy, epistemic justifications of democracy, systems approaches, sortition and lotteries, democracy’s critics.

Political Economy: Democracy and the market, the limits of markets, polycentricity, exit and voice, public goods.

Political Epistemology: Voter knowledge, political polarisation, misinformation and fake news, informational theories of markets.