Search results

Abstract
This article defends the conclusion that the soccer World Cup in Qatar should not be boycotted by rich countries from the Global North. This conclusion is underpinned by considerations about the economic background conditions in guest workers' home countries. Three arguments are considered for the view that the World Cup should be boycotted. It is argued that each of these arguments is unsound. Section 7 contains a discussion of an argument for a boycott that centers on the process through which Qatar was awarded the World Cup. This argument is rejected. The article lists several ways in which guest workers in Qatar are wronged, but this fact about how guest workers are treated does not justify a boycott by rich countries from the Global North.

The question of whether or not publication of opinion poll results should be illegal is of both theoretical and practical interest. A number of countries have laws in place that make the publication of opinion poll results illegal. The article concludes that there should be no legal restrictions on the publication of opinion poll results. The publication of such results should be legally permitted at any time during the electoral cycle. In the second section, a general line of thought centering on the moral nature of state coercion is presented in an attempt to show that the default position in the debate about the legality of the publication of opinion poll results ought be that the publication of such results should be legal. I argue i) that this general line of thought is convincing. There may, however, be at least one stronger argument in favor of the view that the publication of opinion poll results should be illegal. In the third section, I argue ii) that there is in fact no such argument. If i) and ii) are correct, then a very plausible case has been established for the conclusion of this article.

Denne artikel handler om meningsmålinger. Mere specifikt behandler den spørgsmålet om, hvorvidt det bør være ulovligt at offentliggøre resultaterne af meningsmålinger. Spørgsmålet om, hvorvidt offentliggørelse af meningsmålingsresultater bør være ulovligt, er af teoretisk interesse, men det er også af praktisk interesse, fordi et stort antal lande har gennemført love, som gør det ulovligt at offentliggøre meningsmålingsresultater. Denne artikel konkluderer, at der ikke bør være nogen juridiske restriktioner på offentliggørelse af meningsmålingsresultater. Offentliggørelse af sådanne resultater bør være lovligt på et hvilket som helst tidspunkt. I artiklens andet afsnit fremføres et argument for, at udgangspunktet i debatten om, hvorvidt det skal være lovligt at offentliggøre resultaterne af meningsmålinger bør være, at dette skal være lovligt. Der argumenteres for, i) at dette argument er overbevisende. Der kan dog være mindst ét stærkere argument for den opfattelse, at offentliggørelse af meningsmålingsresultater bør være ulovligt. I tredje afsnit argumenteres der for, ii) at der ikke eksisterer et sådant argument. Forudsat at argumenterne for i) og ii) er overbevisende, vil et meget plausibelt argument til fordel for denne artikels konklusion være etableret.

The vote in the House of Commons, on February 1st, 2017, about whether the United Kingdom should leave the European Union raises a host of important theoretical questions in normative political theory. One of them is this: Main Question: In a representative democracy, can a member of a legislature legitimately flip-flop and vote in accordance with the majority view on Issue when she, prior to getting knowledge, through a referendum result, of what the majority view is on Issue, has defended, and recommended to voters, a view that is logically inconsistent with the majority view? This paper defends an affirmative answer to the Main Question. This conclusion is not trivial given that there are many ways in which a member of a legislature can engage in an act of illegitimate flip-flopping. The last section of the paper moves beyond the Main Question and the related issue of how a legislator can legitimately flip-flop. This section raises the question of whether the trustee view of what obligations a legislator has in a representative democracy towards her constituents is mistaken. An alternative to the trustee view is presented and discussed, and it is concluded that this alternative view is implausible.

Abstract
We show how to lawfully buy an election. The key things that make it possible to buy an election are the existence of public voter registration lists and the existence of Big Data Analytics that can predict how a given elector will vote in an election. Someone interested in buying an election can enter an employment contract with some of the opponent electors where these electors are paid to do a job that prevents them from voting. By purchasing access to public voter registration lists, it is possible to verify ex post whether the opponent electors have abstained. In the last two sections, we discuss several barriers that can undermine an attempt to buy an election in the manner we identify.

Abstract
In this article, we argue that anyone who accepts that (1) voting should be compulsory, (2) voting should be secret, and (3) voting should be done by paper ballot ends up with a morally problematic position. In electoral systems where compulsory voting is implemented and the secret paper ballot is in place, it is impossible for officials to check if an elector has cast a valid vote. Therefore, only those who fail to show up at the polls are penalized under the law of compulsory voting. Those electors who show up at the polls but do not vote are not penalized. We argue that this practice amounts to officially sanctioned unequal enforcement of a law, and that such a practice is morally problematic. We then argue that this problem should be solved by rejecting compulsory voting in favor of true mandatory attendance, that is, a regime where the law on the books requires only showing up at the polls on election day as opposed to formally requiring that electors actually cast a valid vote. This is so since only mandatory attendance can be enforced without infringing on the secret ballot, and the law on the books ought to reflect what is actually enforced in practice.