Pluralistic ignorance
Pluralistic ignorance can be contrasted with the false consensus effect. In pluralistic ignorance, people privately disdain but publicly support a norm (or a belief), while the false consensus effect causes people to wrongly assume that most people think like they do, while in reality most people do not think like they do (and express the disagreement openly). For instance, pluralistic ignorance may lead a student to drink alcohol excessively because she believes that everyone else does that, while in reality everyone else also wishes they could avoid binge drinking, but no one expresses that due to the fear of being ostracized. A false consensus for the same situation would mean that the student believes that most other people do not enjoy excessive drinking, while in fact most other people do enjoy that and openly express their opinion about it.
Democracy and Political Ignorance
Bryan Caplan, Somin's colleague at George Mason University, is a proponent of the theory of rational irrationality as an explanation of democratic failure. Caplan rejects many of the public choice arguments for rational ignorance, while embracing the traditional conclusions of public choice. He has expounded on his thesis in the book "The Myth of the Rational Voter". Somin departs from traditional public choice theorists by carving out an important place for rational irrationality, while at the same time disagreeing with Caplan's assertion that rational ignorance alone would not be a problem. Somin expressed his key points in blog posts and elaborated further in Chapter 3 of his book.