Why We Need Coercion by the State
Channel: Havens Wright Center for Social Justice
Date: 29/09/2022

A lecture by Jane Mansbridge examining the concept of coercion, why states need to use it, and why the "demand" for coercion is increasing. Mansbridge explains that the provision of free-access goods - goods that, once produced, anyone can use without paying for them - requires coercion (the threat of sanction or the use of force). Without it, some individuals will use the goods without paying for them because they know that others will (the "free rider" problem), which will eventually lead to an underproduction of those goods. Mansbridge further argues that the need for state coercion is on the increase because of growing social interdependence and the finite supply and stability of the environment, the epitome of a free-access good. 

The event was co-sponsored by the Institute for Regional and International Studies at UW-Madison.

Jane Mansbridge is Charles F. Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values. She is the author of Beyond Adversary Democracy, an empirical and normative study of face-to-face democracy, and the award-winning Why We Lost the ERA, a study of anti-deliberative dynamics in social movements based on organizing for an Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. She is also editor or coeditor of the volumes Beyond Self-Interest, Feminism,Oppositional Consciousness, Deliberative Systems, and Negotiating Agreement in Politics. She was President of the American Political Science Association in 2012-13.  Her current work includes studies of representation, democratic deliberation, everyday activism, and the public understanding of free-rider problems.