The aim of the Georg Büchner Yearbook, which is published at irregular intervals, is to serve Büchner research as a forum for stock-taking and innovation, reflection and debate, for documenting sources and imparting information swiftly, to support critical debate and understanding, and in so doing to cover the whole range of research findings and discussions in both their substance and their methodology. This mission statement from the foreword to the 1st volume (1981) still guides the Yearbook in all its regular (...) sections (articles debates minor contributions and glosses documents and materials reviews current bibliography). (shrink)

J.S. Mill's plural voting proposal in Considerations on Representative Government presents political theorists with a puzzle: the elitist proposal that some individuals deserve a greater voice than others seems at odds with Mill's repeated arguments for the value of full participation in government. This essay looks at Mill's arguments for plural voting, arguing that, far from being motivated solely by elitism, Mill's account is actually driven by a commitment to both competence and participation. It goes on to argue that, for (...) Mill, much of the value of political participation lies in its unique ability to educate the participants. That ability to educate is not, however, a product of participation alone; rather, for Mill, the true educative benefits of participation obtain only when competence and participation work together in the political sphere. Plural voting, then, is a mechanism for allowing Mill to take advantage of the educative benefits that arise from the intersection of competence and participation. (shrink)