Democracy by Design: Nobel Laureate Eric Maskin Joins Texas A&M Panel on Voting and Redistricting

A panel hosted by Texas A&M’s Department of Economics brought nationally recognized scholars to campus in January for Democracy by Design: Voting and Redistricting. Sponsored by the Private Enterprise Research Center and the Mosbacher Institute for Trade, Economics, and Public Policy, the event was held at the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center. It invited students, faculty and community members to explore how voting systems and district maps shape democratic participation. 

Among the panelists were experts in economics, political science, statistics and law, including Nobel Laureate Dr. Eric Maskin, professor of economics at Harvard University. The panel opened a dialogue that bridged academic research with real-world questions that drive news coverage, elections and public debate.

The panel grew out of Maskin’s visit to Texas A&M as a Hagler Fellow. The Hagler Institute brings distinguished scholars to campus for short-term visits, giving departments an opportunity to organize events around major research topics. 

Maskin is spending three weeks at Texas A&M as part of his fellowship, working with the Department of Economics and collaborating with faculty, researchers and students across the College of Arts and Sciences to explore institutional design and democratic systems.  

Known for his research contributions in game theory, contract theory, social choice theory, and political economy, Maskin shared the 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for advancing mechanism design; the study of how social and economic goal can be achieved through design choices in institutions. 

Maskin is a member of groups such as the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Econometric Society. He has been honored with the Medal of Honor from the Congress of Peru, the Kempe award in Environmental Economics and 18 honorary degrees. 

With 4 books, and 145 peer-reviewed articles that he has either authored or edited, Maskin’s work impacts the way that scholars understand the relationships between rules, incentives, and outcomes in both markets and democratic systems. 

For Maskin, the panel was meant to reach beyond specialists to anyone willing to listen. “We directed the panel toward a general audience, not people who necessarily know much about voting systems,” he said. “It was an educational opportunity, and we hope the audience walked away with a better understanding of redistricting issues and how we might improve voting systems.” 

Rather than treating democracy as something fixed, Maskin emphasized that voting systems and district maps are designed by people and can change. That idea, which was the foundation of much of the discussion, gave audience members a way to think about elections as the result of choices rather than inevitabilities.

Alongside Maskin, the panel featured Dr. Jonathan Katz, professor of social sciences and statistics at the California Institute of Technology, and Dr. Nicholas Stephanopoulos, professor of law at Harvard University. The discussion was moderated by Dr. Soren Jordan, associate professor of political science at Texas A&M. 

Each panelist represented a different way of studying democracy. Katz focuses on how data and statistics help explain voting behavior and representation. Stephanopoulos examines how electoral systems and district maps stand in court. Jordan studies public opinion, political behavior and polarization. Together, their perspectives showed how one issue can be understood in quite different ways depending on the field. 

Jordan described the conversation as one that addressed “the implications of different ‘electoral designs’ — the choices around early voting, districting, voter identification, and the like — for participation and politics.” 

Jordan explained that different academic fields approach democracy in different ways. “Some disciplines, like political science, are very objective and almost refuse to think about the world in terms of ‘problems’ and ‘solutions,’” he said. “Other disciplines, like constitutional law, are much more linked to advocacy for or against policy or legal positions. The public needs both factfinders as well as advocates.” 

Bringing those perspectives together allows audiences to see how ideas move from theory to evidence to legal consequences. “Hearing almost instantaneously about a hypothetical electoral design, then the evidence about how it affects an outcome like turnout, then the implications of how that design would play out in court is an extremely unique collective perspective,” Jordan said. 

He also stressed the importance of keeping research separate from political judgment. “We just present the facts,” he said. “The public is free to draw any partisan implications that they choose.” He added that explaining the cause and effect is different from deciding whether those effects are good or bad.

The panel aimed to make complex ideas understandable without oversimplifying them. Maskin described it as a chance for people to learn how voting systems work and why small design choices can matter. 

Student Maya Moreno attended the event, saying she was interested in how institutional design connects to business and society. “What prompted me to attend was to do an assignment based on the influence of how markets and institutions are designed across our nation,” she said. 

She said the panel helped expand what she already knew. “I heard familiar words and things I kind of knew about, very basic,” she said. “But then I heard them go into detail.” 

Moreno added that the use of examples made the conversation easier to follow. “They really went into depth and used real world examples to connect it back,” she said. “It was really informative overall, even as someone that doesn't know a whole bunch.” 

She said the event was still worthwhile for students without a strong academic background in the topic. “If you were curious about the subject and if you attended, it was definitely going to be something worth going to,” she said.

Jordan said events like Democracy by Design show how Texas A&M brings national expertise to campus to help people better understand policy questions. “Texas A&M University is a place where experts like Nobel Prize winners and constitutional legal scholars are invited to share their objective expertise and explain the implications of real policy for the political world,” he said. 

He emphasized that discussion does not mean endorsement. “Sometimes those implications are political, but the public wants to understand them,” Jordan said. “I'm grateful that we can have conversations about policy at Texas A&M without those conversations being seen as an endorsement of any particular position.”