I've previously mentioned Caplan's work. Here's a profile from Louis Menand in the latest New Yorker. Menand goes great work, so I'm sure it's worth reading. (See also The Metaphysical Club.)

Bryan Caplan, an economist who teaches at George Mason University, thinks that increasing voter participation is a bad thing. He thinks, in fact, that the present level of voter participation—about fifty per cent of the electorate votes in Presidential elections, a much lower percentage than in most democracies, as Americans are frequently reminded—is a bad thing.

This is a good closer:

A great virtue of democratic polities is stability. The toleration of silly opinions is (to speak like an economist) a small price to pay for it.