No problem. Looking forward to hearing what you think of it.

Nice, though I wonder what you think of this justification of political meritocracy as presented in a recent article of mine www.cambridge.org/core/service...

We cannot compare empirically because I am only making a theoretical proposal that does not yet have a perfect counterpart in reality. Also, my justification of this hybridity is based on how it can better address what I called "pathologies of unconstrained political competition".

Well, given that unequal turnout and campaign contribution usually overlap with the distribution of other inequalities, I would not say that electoral democracy gives everyone equal power in selecting officeholders, let alone deciding policies. I discuss this issue on page 13 of the article.

But no selection procedure is totally unbiased. Under electoral democracy, those who are shy have no chance of becoming a political leader. This is why a hybrid regime adopting different selection methods is preferable, since all kinds of individuals can find a pathway to become a political leader.

The system I defend is a hybrid combining meritocracy and lottocracy for the executive branch (the legislature remains elected). Specifically, citizen juries are empowered to decide further promotions of those up the political hierarchy. So it is more than passing exams.

That is true. But my case for the hybrid regime in the article is actually quite pluralistic, demonstrating that it is either superior to or no worse than electoral democracy in terms of political equality, epistemic performance, social harmony, promoting civic friendship...

Yes. Here I am drawing on Landa and Pevnick (global.oup.com/academic/pro...) about how political meritocracy is no less egalitarian than representative democracy. Of course, they have other problems with PM. But I argue those problems can be addressed by embracing not pure PM, but a hybrid regime.

Actually, I made it clear in the abstract this is not based on some Millian arguments casting doubts on average voters' political competence. Also, I explain in the article why this well-designed hybrid regime should be viewed as more, not less, egalitarian than electoral democracy.