Ilya Somin

Ilya Somin is a law professor at George Mason University, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, a blogger for the Volokh Conspiracy, and a former co-editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review (2006 to 2013). His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, and the study of popular political participation and its implications for constitutional democracy. He is the author of two books published in 2013: Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government Is Smarter, and A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case (co-authored with other Volokh Conspiracy bloggers). A revised and expanded second edition of Democracy and Political Ignorance came out in June 2016. He is also the author of the 2015 book The Grasping Hand: "Kelo v. City of New London" and the Limits of Eminent Domain, a scholarly book on the topic of eminent domain, property rights, and the Supreme Court's controversial decision in Kelo v. City of New London.

Somin was born in the USSR in 1973. At age five, he migrated along with his family to the United States. In a personal memoir, Somin recounted both the material poverty in the USSR (that he experienced firsthand) and the ideological indoctrination (that he learned about from family members, and saw glimpses of as a child). Somin received his B.A. in political science and history from Amherst College, M.A. in political science from Harvard University and J.D. from Yale Law School.

Like other public choice theorists, Somin argues that rational ignorance is a major problem for the successful functioning of democracy. He has argued for this position in a number of published articles, and has in particular been critical of the ideal of deliberative democracy.

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