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Vigilance and Confidence: Jeremy Bentham, Publicity, and the Dialectic of Political Trust and Distrust

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2017

JONATHAN R. BRUNO
JONATHAN R. BRUNO*
Affiliation:
Harvard University
*
Jonathan R. Bruno is Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Government at Harvard University, and a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. Working at the intersection of democratic theory, constitutionalism, and political ethics, he is currently completing a project on secrecy and transparency in democratic life (jbruno@fas.harvard.edu).
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Abstract

Distrust of public authorities is a mainstay of democratic politics. In recent decades, however, concern with surging civic suspicion has led political scientists to emphasize the value of trust for good government. This article advances a novel reading of Jeremy Bentham's political theory to shed light on the promise and perils of these two dispositions. Trust and distrust go together, in Bentham's account. In making this case, I reexamine Bentham's reflections on publicity, and distinguish between two perspectives implicit in his theory—the perspective of institutional design, and the perspective of popular oversight. This distinction brings clarity to Bentham's surprising recommendation: sober distrust toward public authorities generally, together with particularized trust in those (and only those) institutions or officials who prove themselves worthy of it.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 111 , Issue 2 , May 2017 , pp. 295 - 307
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2017 

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Footnotes

Prior versions of this article were presented to the Harvard Political Theory Workshop and the Graduate Seminar of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, which generously supported my research. I am grateful to both audiences for their feedback, and to the following individuals for helpful suggestions: Eric Beerbohm, James Brandt, Greg Conti, Michael Frazer, Daniel Jütte, Frances Kamm, Tae-Yeoun Keum, Tsin Yen Koh, Eric Nelson, Tomer Perry, Nancy Rosenblum, William Selinger, and Cheryl Welch. For support and encouragement I thank Joshua Cherniss, Laura Hartmann, Dennis Thompson, and Daria Van Tyne. Albert Bruno was a source of joy throughout the revision process. Last but not least, I gratefully acknowledge the editorial team of the American Political Science Review, especially Steven P. Forde and four anonymous reviewers, whose incisive criticism improved the article considerably.

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