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This book offers a comprehensive overview and critique of the most important political and philosophical interpretations of the basic results of social choice, assessing their plausibility and seeking to identify the links between the theory of social choice and the more traditional issues of political theory and philosophy. In this regard, the author eschews a strong methodological commitment or technical formalism; the approach is instead based on the presentation of political facts and illustrated via numerous real-life examples. This allows the reader to get acquainted with the philosophical and political dispute surrounding voting and collective decision-making and its links to social choice theory.

How do social institutions exist? How do they direct our conduct? The Opposite Mirrors defends the thesis that the existence of institutions is a conventional matter. Ultimately they exist because we believe in their existence, and because they play a role in our practical reasoning. Human action necessarily has an unpredictable aspect; human institutions perform an important task by reducing uncertainty in our interactions. The author applies this thesis to the most important institutions: the law and the monetary system. In his analysis he connects many traditional topics of the philosophy of law, social philosophy and the philosophy of social sciences in a new way. He discusses the nature of rules, authority, and power and analyzes the Hobbesian presuppositions which have been dominant in legal theory and in the economic analyses of the state. The book is written for legal theorists as well as for political and social philosophers, and theoretically oriented social scientists

The All-Affected Principle has an important status in recent theoretical discussions on democracy. According to the principle, all who are affected by a decision should have a right to participate into making it. The principle is supposed to ground the right or optimal boundaries of democratic decision-making units. This paper is basically a critique of the principle. In the first parts of the paper, the All-Affected Principle is distinguished from some related principles. However, even a more precise version of the principle is still troubled by ambiguities. It is argued that Robert Goodin's expansive reading is the only coherent one. However, if it is accepted, the principle cannot be used for its original purpose. The last parts focus on some largely unexamined aspects of the principle. First, the principle also works as a means of exclusion, not only of inclusion. Second, if, as the principle says, participation rights are based on interests, it is by no means obvious that these rights should be equal. Third, the principle cannot provide us with a non-institutional starting point. Nevertheless, a much weaker form of the principle may be plausible.

"Most classical political theorists agree that politics should aim at achieving 'the common good'. They also agree that the content of this common good can be known. This conclusion seems to have potentially undemocratic consequences. A popular response to this perceived problem by theorists of democracy is that the democratic process itself is a means of determining the content of the common good. There are two possible versions of this thesis: either the supposed common good is something which only emerges within the democratic process itself, or the common good exists independently of the process, and the process is the best means of determining its content. The latter version is often supported by de Condorcet's famous Jury Theorem. Both versions have their weaknesses. The constitutive version leads into a pragmatic inconsistency, while the indicative version cannot justify the role of the Opposition. My conclusion is that a plausible defence of democracy cannot be based solely on the epistemic considerations. It has to be based on egalitarian considerations: democratic processes are fair because they treat all citizens as equals. However, the notion of the common good may still play an indirect role in justifying democratic processes. Even though democratic majorities do not possess any specific epistemic virtues, democratic processes may still, in the long run, be more likely to reach the common good than experts or philosopher-kings." (author's abstract).