1. Perhaps it’s true that elections are mostly sold to the highest bidder in developing poor countries. (I’m not familiar with the research on this, and I’d be reluctant to simply trust your Wikipedia link.) Should EAs help the “better” candidate buy their way to power? It seems like this risks undermining the legitimacy of their elections.
2. It’s not clear to me that it’s easy to figure out who the better candidate is. In one’s own country that can often be difficult. Understanding the politics of a foreign country would be even harder. And I’m skeptical that we can just defer to whatever the majority of a country wants because a) it won’t always be clear what the majority wants and b) there are reasons to think the majority will be mistaken due to bias or ignorance.
And I don’t see how the footnote you cite on this point supports your position. It summarizes research about the effects of information dissemination on voters’ choices. It finds that in some cases voters change their decisions after receiving information about social policies or political candidates. In other words, it shows that the citizens were ignorant—they did not know what was happening in politics. As the researchers note:
Voters may lack information about the qualifications and policy positions of candidates, making it difficult to make an informed vote choice.
Moreover, the upshot of the research is that sometimes people change their minds when given information about policies or candidates. This doesn’t show that they ended up choosing the better policy or candidate.
I think the standard of evidence needs to be much higher before EAs get involved in foreign countries’ political affairs.
A couple thoughts on this:
1. Perhaps it’s true that elections are mostly sold to the highest bidder in developing poor countries. (I’m not familiar with the research on this, and I’d be reluctant to simply trust your Wikipedia link.) Should EAs help the “better” candidate buy their way to power? It seems like this risks undermining the legitimacy of their elections.
2. It’s not clear to me that it’s easy to figure out who the better candidate is. In one’s own country that can often be difficult. Understanding the politics of a foreign country would be even harder. And I’m skeptical that we can just defer to whatever the majority of a country wants because a) it won’t always be clear what the majority wants and b) there are reasons to think the majority will be mistaken due to bias or ignorance.
And I don’t see how the footnote you cite on this point supports your position. It summarizes research about the effects of information dissemination on voters’ choices. It finds that in some cases voters change their decisions after receiving information about social policies or political candidates. In other words, it shows that the citizens were ignorant—they did not know what was happening in politics. As the researchers note:
Moreover, the upshot of the research is that sometimes people change their minds when given information about policies or candidates. This doesn’t show that they ended up choosing the better policy or candidate.
I think the standard of evidence needs to be much higher before EAs get involved in foreign countries’ political affairs.