Keywords: Politics, mathematics, political science
Title: Political Numeracy
Author/Artist: Michael Meyerson
Publisher: Norton
Media: Book
Reviewer: Pan
Beware the subtitle Mathematical Perspectives on Our Chaotic Constitution anyone looking for a treatise on the political effects of a lack of mathematical sophistication in the general population should look elsewhere. Meyerson is firmly focussed on the US Constitution and uses mathematical ideas to reflect on the history and interpretations of the American political system. Not that he does not address wider concerns - his discussion of different voting systems, for example is interesting, (and timely, given Le Pen's first-round election result in France).
Does mathematics provide much new insight into a something as messy as a political system? The answer is not very much, to be honest. This is a fairly slim book and depth is sorely lacking in many of the later chapters. It is not just that some of the material is superficial, it is also because some of the mathematical topics really do not have anything to say about politics, constitutional or otherwise. For example there is a discussion on relativity that has very little relevance to constitutionalism other than at a facile level. Similarly the discussion of some aspects of chaos theory is very light.
Surprisingly the one area of mathematics/science which have had something of interest - complexity theory - is sadly not given the treatment it merits. While John Holland is name-checked and there is some discussion of the edge of chaos and complex adaptive systems the concept of emergence and the interaction of many autonomous agents is not explored. Some of these ideas, as applied to social systems are touched on in Steven Johnson's Emergence.
In all this is still an interesting read, and the core idea of using mathematical ideas to explore political ideas is a good one, however as Meyerson himself admits in his final chapter there are limits to the use of mathematical reasoning.
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