Michele Giavazzi

Research Fellow in Philosophy & Political Theory
 LMU University of Munich

ABOUT
I am a Research Fellow at the Chair in Philosophy & Political Theory of the University of Munich, Germany. My work is funded by a German Research Foundation (DFG) individual fellowship.

I am a political philosopher, working on issues at the intersection between democratic theory and political epistemology

My work has been published in venues such as Philosophy & Public Affairs and the Journal of Moral Philosophy. Before joining Munich, I was a temporary lecturer at Aberdeen and had other postdoctoral appointments in Warwick and Genoa. I also held visiting appointments at Brown University and Tilburg University.

I have a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. Before that, I studied for my BA and MA in philosophy at the University of Milan, Italy.

You can find a copy of my CV at https://short-url.cc/1zUIH
RESEARCH
My research agenda revolves around the idea that democracy requires citizens to meet certain epistemic demands in their political decision-making conduct, for instance when they vote. 

However, I reject the purely instrumental outlook that tends to drive this idea and argue that what binds citizens to important epistemic responsibilities is the accountability relation in which they stand to one another as co-participants in shared political practices.

This overarching outlook drives my research into various topics such as the ethics of voting, the demands of shared political agency, the requirements of an egalitarian democratic ethos and epistemic and elitist challenges to democratic legitimacy.

I am currently working on a book manuscript on these topics.

Publications

Peer-Reviewed Articles

2026: 'On the Delegitimising Force of Democracy's Epistemic Dysfunctions: an Institutional Integrity Account', Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy. https://doi.org/10.1080/13698230.2026.2696176

2024: 'Political Equality & Epistemic Constraints on Voting', Philosophy & Public Affairs 52(2): 147-176.
https://doi.org/10.1111/papa.12255

2024: with Z. Kapelner ‘The State’s Duty to Foster Voter Competence’, Episteme 21(3): 719-732.
https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2022.31

2023: ‘The Epistemic Responsibilities of Voters. Towards an Assertion-based Account’, Journal of Moral Philosophy 20(1): 111-131.
https://doi.org/10.1163/17455243-20223791

Work in Progress / Under Review

A paper on joint action and voting

A paper on respect and epistemic responsibility in the ethics of democracy

A paper on public ignorance

A book on the epistemic demands of citizenship and voting rights

Contact

  • Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, Monaco di Baviera, Germania