Pluralistic ignorance
In social psychology, pluralistic ignorance is a situation in which a majority of group members privately reject a norm, but go along with it because they incorrectly assume that most others accept it. This is also described as "no one believes, but everyone thinks that everyone believes". In short, pluralistic ignorance is a bias about a social group, held by the members of that social group.
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.