Democracy's Knowledge Problem: from Polarization to Collective Wisdom. This project aims to understand how democratic societies can track knowledge despite increasing polarization and technological ch

Description

Democracy's Knowledge Problem: from Polarization to Collective Wisdom. This project aims to understand how democratic societies can track knowledge despite increasing polarization and technological change. The research will develop mathematical models to analyze how beliefs become signals of group identity in social networks and evaluate institutional designs for promoting epistemic accuracy while respecting social bonds. This will provide significant benefits through identifying effective governance interventions for digital platforms, developing metrics to distinguish healthy from dysfunctional opinion clustering, and creating principles for reform. The findings will help Australian policymakers design better democratic institutions and regulatory frameworks while fostering epistemic robustness.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 5003 - Philosophy. Lead: Prof Toby Handfield