​Does good governance require citizens to be knowledgeable of basic facts and best policy ideas? Some scholars suggest that it does, and propose disenfranchising the most ‘ignorant’ voters. In contrast, we argue, political systems are complex systems inevitably exhibiting incomplete, imperfect and asymmetric information that is dynamically generated in society from actors with diverse life experiences, antagonistic interests and often profoundly dissonant views and values, generating radical uncertainty among political elites over the consequences of their decisions. Radical uncertainty, radical dissonance and power asymmetry are inescapable properties of politics. Good performance significantly depends on how political elites navigate through radical uncertainty to handle radical dissonance. Democracy, by offering citizens equal rights to participate in politics and talk freely, both enables and compels political actors to track social feedback regarding the effects of their decisions on a diverse public, and consider it in ways that mitigate these three problems.

This paper criticises the epistemic foundations of democratic state-building, which are derived from a model of political transitions according to which liberal democratic institutions will transform a hitherto authoritarian and troubled country into a more prosperous and stable society and, therefore, foreign interventions to establish these institutions are realistic and worthy investments, provided they are properly planned based on knowledge of what has worked elsewhere. 

Drawing from the study of complex systems, the paper indicates why there is a flawed conception of political transitions and why radical and large-scale interventions, such as state-building, will tend to generate unintended consequences rather than the planned effect.

Expert advice based on reductionist methodologies suggests ways for the government to interfere in the economy and builds overconfidence in the policymakers' belief that they can steer collective behaviour in a desired direction.  This type of analysis disregards complexity in each environment of intervention and  overlooks how radical policy interventions generate diverse and intractable micro-adaptations  that develop over time to generate unforeseen and unintended consequences in the economy. 

Welfare-enhancing information is essential for facilitating cooperation and coordination in complex social environments where market-emergent heuristics may, in some cases, be seen as insufficient. This is where there is a scope for careful state intervention. We argue in favour of  nudges as soft interventions bound by the checks of proportionality and subsidiarity as a way to improve our informational capacity without restricting our choices to choose our risks. Soft interventionism requires policymakers to opt for the least intrusive form of intervention, first and foremost nudges to achieve legitimate public policy ends. This form of interventionism is compatible with a normative commitment to personal liberty.