ENCODE: Closing Conference

Dates & Location: 

• November 11th-13th, 2026
• Erasmus School of Philosophy, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Keynote speakers

• Christian List, Ludwig Maximilians-Universität München
• Cristina Lafont, Northwestern University
• Sofie Marien, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
• Davide Grossi, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
• Hervé Moulin, University of Glasgow

Topic Description 

While originally seen as strongly opposed, various scholars have argued that deliberative democracy and social choice theory complement each other in the quest for new, more democratic forms of participation. For instance, Arrowian and other impossibility results in social choice theory would be mitigated if allow for deliberative elements to influence agenda-setting as well as to align voter’s preferences. Likewise, careful deliberation may allow citizens to agree on a common scale for evaluating policies, thus enriching the informational basis for social choice. On the other hand, recent work shows that if we want to scale and digitally enable more deliberative forms of interaction, this gives rise to new social choice theoretic puzzles, e.g. regarding the selection and ranking of proposals or ideas during or after deliberation. Finally, digitally enhanced forms of participation and public consultation may well be indispensable if we want to ensure that deliberative mini-publics achieve genuine democratic legitimacy, and they arguably require a solid grounding in social choice theory as well as empirical political science.

This interdisciplinary conference brings together philosophers, computer scientists, political scientists, as well economists, representing a variety of perspectives on deliberation, social choice, and their interplay in the practice of democratic innovation. The following is a non-exhaustive list of topics for discussion:

• Recent findings on the interplay of deliberation and voting theory, both theoretical and empirical
• Development and application of digital democratic tools, with a focus on the role of social choice and/or deliberation in them
• Formal accounts of deliberative representation and deliberative representativeness of committees
• Deliberative mini-publics and the public sphere
• Fairness and fair representation in deliberation and social choice
• Novel, deliberative forms of public consultation and crowdsourcing for democratic purposes

In addition to keynote lectures, we also invite scholars to present their own recent work on any of these or related subjects. An open call for abstracts (300-500 words excl. references and tables, in pdf format) will be distributed late May, with the deadline for abstracts set to August 15th, 2026. More information on this will be given shortly; if you have questions, please get in touch with Frederik Van De Putte (vandeputte@esphil.eur.nl).

Program Committee:

• Frederik Van De Putte, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam 
• Nicolien Janssens, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam 
• Constanze Binder, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam
• Stefan Wintein, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam
• Dominik Klein, Universiteit Utrecht 
• Erica Yu, Universiteit Tilburg
• Giacomo Sbrozi, Universiteit Antwerpen

Funding & Partners

This is the closing conference of the NWO-sponsored VIDI project ENCODE – Explicating Norms of Collective Deliberation (VI.Vidi.191.105), led by Frederik Van De Putte at the Erasmus School of Philosophy, Erasmus University Rotterdam. It is co-hosted by the Erasmus School of Philosophy and the Erasmus Institute for Philosophy & Economics.