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In order to show how the political domain can be analyzed from the perspective of the economic conception of rationality, I want to refer to the field of Public Choice theory25. This is aptly defined as “the application of economics to political science” (Mueller 2003: 1). Public Choice theorists thus aim to analyze political phenomena by modeling individuals as Homines Economici in both their private and public roles: “the salient feature of all of public choice is its use of the homo economicus assumption (…). The bulk of the work in public choice employs this assumption to explain and predict behavior in a political context” (Mueller 1993: 405). As I have already suggested, I will focus more specifically on the decisions whether or not to vote and whom to vote for.

1.1. Economic rationality and the decision whether or not to vote

1.1.1. The calculus of voting

The standard Public Choice analysis of the decision whether or not to vote was formulated first by Anthony Downs (1957: 260-276) and was later formalized by Gordon Tullock (1967: 110-114). They argue that economically rational

25 I will go into Public Choice theory more fully in the fifth chapter, where I analyze

extensively the work of James M. Buchanan, perhaps its most important and best-known defender.

citizens vote only if its expected costs (C for costs) do not exceed its expected benefits (B for benefits). The latter, however, only arise if their vote has an impact on the electoral result, which depends on the extremely low probability of a single vote being decisive (P for probability). Because the resulting condition to vote (PB > C) is almost never met, these authors argue that economically rational citizens systematically decide to abstain. Downs (1957: 260) comes to this conclusion of rational abstention by assuming “that every rational man decides whether to vote just as he makes all other decisions: if the returns outweigh the costs, he votes; if not, he abstains”.

While all Public Choice theorists focus on such a cost-benefit calculus, they do not agree on its nature. According to some, citizens are to be modeled as trying to further their self-interest, further qualified as their subjective well-being or material wealth. In this narrow view, citizens vote if they think this will benefit them in self-interested terms. According to others, it is not necessary to assume that individuals act egoistically (Fiorina 1997: 408-409). This broader view still refers to the consequences that citizens want to bring about. It stresses the instrumental motivation of citizens going out to vote in order to achieve their goals, whatever these are. If one wants some specific candidate to win the elections – regardless whether this will benefit oneself – and one believes that one’s vote will help realize this, it is rational to go out and vote. To be sure, the assumption of egoism remains dominant among Public Choice theorists, since it allows them to make specific predictions. Nevertheless, I will focus mainly on the broader view, not only because it is intuitively more plausible, but also because any counterargument against it automatically applies to the narrower view as well.

1.1.2. The paradox of voting

Within the economic conception of rationality, it is thus hard to grasp why any rational citizen would ever vote. The crux lies in the fact that the impact of a single vote on the electoral outcome (P) is infinitesimal26. Despite the prediction that rational individuals will always decide to abstain, lots of citizens still vote. This has become known as the “the paradox of voting” (Blais 2000: 2). Even though one would expect it to have a comparative advantage in explaining voting decisions, Public Choice theory is blatantly falsified here (Margolis 1984: 3, 12). Its failed attempt to explain why people vote is even

26 Sometimes the electoral outcome is already known before citizens decide whether or

not to vote, as was the case for citizens living in the West Coast states during the Nixon landslides in the 1980s (Brennan & Lomasky 1993: 35).

renowned for being “the Achilles’ heel of rational choice theory in political science” (Aldrich 1997: 373).

To avoid misunderstanding, I want to stress that voting itself can hardly be called a paradox. If a paradox is “a tenet contrary to received opinion” (http://m-w.com), it is not so much voting that is paradoxical but the theory that no rational citizen ever votes. It is only within an exclusively instrumental account of human behavior that voting becomes a mystery. However, Alan Carling (1998: 21) is right in pointing out that even this is no genuine paradox, which is properly defined as “an argument that apparently derives self- contradictory conclusions by valid deduction from acceptable premises” (http://m-w.com).

As this chapter’s opening quote by Geoffrey Brennan and Loren Lomasky suggests, any explanation of voting behavior as an attempt to bring about preferred goals is highly dubious. Because the influence of a single vote on the electoral outcome is infinitesimal, any instrumentally motivated individual will decide to abstain. A single individual’s decision to go out and vote cannot be understood as an attempt to bring about the consequences he prefers. It is completely irrelevant whether his goals are defined narrowly (in egoistic terms) or more broadly (in terms of ends, whatever these are): “whether one favors selfish or selfless ends, virtually any activity in pursuit of those ends would be more effective than the time spent on voting” (Friedman 1996: 6).

In addition, even if one’s vote influences the electoral outcome, it will only select one of many political representatives. The problem then arises that one does not know for sure whether this politician will select the policy measures that one prefers. And even if he does, his choices are likely to have only a small impact on the state of affairs. The basic point is that “citizens voting in mass elections neither bear the full consequences of their decision nor have much impact on the outcomes. The combination of these two features of large elections means that any conception of voting behavior that is instrumental in nature is highly suspect” (Fiorina 1997: 403).

This situation resembles a classic Prisoner’s Dilemma in which it is rational for every individual to freeride and profit from the contributions of others to the public good. Even though all citizens want the democratic system to continue, the instrumentally motivated ones will give in to the incentive to abstain at elections. Since contributing to the public good of democracy is individually costly but not strictly needed, economically rational citizens will be tempted to freeride (Bowles & Gintis 1986: 138). While the abovementioned analysis assumes a fixed environment of high turnout, this line of reasoning suggests that the decision to vote is a strategic rather than a parametric one. Carling (1998: 21-24) has argued that this gives rise to a genuine paradox of voting.

Whether it is rational to vote depends on the decisions of one’s fellow citizens. If everybody deems it rational to abstain, turnout drops to zero. This increases P drastically and makes voting the rational thing to do. If, however, everybody thinks this way, everybody will rationally decide to vote, resulting in the initial situation of high turnout. The conclusion that nobody votes if everybody votes and vice versa then forms a genuine paradox.

1.1.3. Amending the calculus of voting

To disentangle these mysteries and explain why so many citizens vote, several strategies have been deployed (Blais 2000: 3-10; Dowding 2005: 442-453). In search of alternative explanations of the decision to vote, most of these stress that rationality is wholly subjective in nature, thereby allowing for individual differences in aims, beliefs and preferences (Carling 1998: 29).

A first strategy stresses that it does not matter what the objective probability of a single vote being decisive is, but how citizens assess this chance. This way of explaining turnout by increasing P assumes that individuals systematically overestimate the impact of their vote on the electoral outcome. One can rationally decide to vote on the basis of the false belief that P is quite large (Riker & Ordeshook 1968: 38-39). Some empirical studies indeed find that “many people are prone to overestimate P” (Blais 2000: 81). Nevertheless, this must not distract from the fact that “on any reading, the probability of any one voter’s being decisive (or more generally the extent of any individual voter’s influence on electoral outcomes) is bound to be small” (Brennan & Lomasky 1993: 73). As a matter of fact, most of the available empirical evidence shows that P has only a weak impact on the decision to vote (Aldrich 1997: 387-389; Brennan & Lomasky 1993: 120; Mueller 2003: 309-312, 319)27. All this is reassuring with respect to both the intelligence and the rationality of voters (Mueller 2003: 329). It would indeed be odd to assume that a majority of citizens is wholly incapable of making fairly simple statistical estimates.

A second strategy stresses that voting is often perceived as taking very little trouble (Blais 2000: 87). However, this strategy of minimizing the expected costs (C) is doomed to fail as long as P remains infinitesimally small. The standard argument is that even a small cost (C) will discourage a rational citizen to vote, since the expected benefits (PB) are negligibly small (Barry 1970: 14- 15).

27 The most straightforward proof can be found in questionnaires: “when asked why they

A third strategy increases B by stressing the importance of elections. Some citizens believe that there is a small chance of their vote bringing about enormous benefits, either for themselves or for society as a whole. Downs (1957: 261-262), for example, argues that people vote in order to uphold the democratic system they live in: “if no one votes, then the system collapses because no government is chosen. We assume that the citizens of a democracy subscribe to its principles and therefore derive benefits from its continuance; hence they do not want it to collapse”. However, incorporating a wide range of benefits to raise B does not help much as long as P remains negligibly small. While this strategy drops the assumption of egoism, it continues to explain the decision to vote in instrumental terms. This fails because of the simple fact that a single vote has no impact whatsoever on the way a democracy functions. The collective action problem remains that each individual may consider democratic government to be a public good, but choose not contribute to it.

The fourth strategy to solve the paradox of voting is the most promising one. In line with William Riker and Peter Ordeshook (1968), it has been argued that individuals vote if they experience satisfaction from the act of voting itself. Voting is deemed pleasurable, no matter what the electoral result is and thus regardless of whether one’s preferred candidate is elected. In other words, voters perceive the trouble of going out to vote as a benefit28. Because a single vote is virtually unable to influence the electoral result, rational individuals will largely disregard such consequences and will only take into account the benefits and costs of the act of voting itself. Next to the instrumental benefits of voting (PB), one must thus incorporate the expressive benefits from the act of voting itself (D) (Carling 1998: 27). Often, these benefits arise from fulfilling what people consider their duty. This argument adds an extra term (D for duty) to the comparison so that the resulting condition to vote (PB + D > C) is met more easily. At first sight, this seems to be an empirically promising move: “the quantitative importance of D is much greater than that of either P or B” (Mueller 2003: 311).

Several authors follow this line of reasoning. First, Riker and Ordeshook (1968: 28) argue that expressing one’s vote can bring about various sorts of satisfaction: “1. the satisfaction from compliance with the ethic of voting (…) 2. the satisfaction from affirming allegiance to the political system (…) 3. the satisfaction from affirming a partisan preference (…) 4. the satisfaction of deciding, going to the polls”. Second, Morris Fiorina (1976: 395) distinguishes between partisan and independent citizens, the first of whom experience

28 One could argue that this strategy lowers the cost of voting below zero, since voting is

experienced not as a cost, but as a benefit. In the end, this is a purely terminological question. The underlying thought remains the same.

“utility or disutility of satisfying or violating one’s party allegiance”. Arguing that D plays a role for some citizens but not for others, he is able to explain the intermediate turnout levels that characterize elections in modern democracies with voluntary voting. Third, Geoffrey Brennan and Loren Lomasky (1993: 33) argue that “revealing a preference is a direct consumption activity, yielding benefits to the individual in and of itself”. This allows them to distinguish between instrumental voters who – like investors – seek to bring about something that benefits them and expressive voters who – like consumers – gain utility from the act itself (Ferejohn & Fiorina 1974: 526)29. Fourth, Alexander Schuessler (2000a) applies his “logic of expressive choice” to voter decisions, arguing that voting itself is thought of as agreeable. Waiting in line to vote is not perceived as an impediment to be overcome, but as an additional benefit of voting (Schuessler 2000a: 25, 56). Even though Schuessler (2000b: 103-105) explicitly wants to move away from Public Choice theory, he continues to define the expressive aspects of voting wholly in terms of benefits. Stressing that voters experience satisfaction from the very act of expressing their preferences, this account has become known as the “expressive voter hypothesis” (Mueller 2003: 320-323). However, it should be clear that it stays squarely within the instrumental framework of Public Choice theory. It understands the decision to vote as aimed towards a goal external to the voting act itself, namely that of experiencing “satisfaction” (Riker & Ordeshook 1968: 28), “intrinsic benefits” (Brennan & Lomasky 1993: 61), “psychic rewards” (Overbye 1995: 372), “utility gain” (Mueller 2003: 320) or “expressive returns” (Schuessler 2000: 107).

Some authors instrumentally rationalize the decision to vote in a more indirect way. First, Einar Overbye argues that people vote in order to build a reputation that will benefit them in the long run. Since expressing their identity consists of sending signals to fellow citizens, people will take into account the possible impact of their acts on their social capital: “voting may be regarded as a rational investment decision: not an investment in a particular electoral outcome, but in a type of reputation which the individual is interested in maintaining when carrying out his/her everyday activities” (Overbye 1995: 369). Second, Schuessler (2000b: 88) argues that “voting is a means to express political beliefs

29

Authors like Brennan, Buchanan and Lomasky stress that the electoral context is characterized by the complete absence of a connection between the individual’s action and the resulting outcome. In this respect, it cannot be understood as analogous with consumption. While citizens decide to vote irrespective of whether they actually get the outcome they prefer, consumers only pay the price if they know they will receive the desired product (Buchanan 1999: XIII, 163; Brennan & Lomasky 1989: 44). I will go into the repercussions of this thought when arguing in favor of a completely non- instrumental account of voting decisions.

and preferences and, in doing so, to establish or reaffirm their own political identity”. He distinguishes “between strict electoral-outcome-oriented rationality and expressively focused motivation which targets an outcome other than the electoral result” (Schuessler 2000b: 116). Once more, it is clear that these accounts continue to analyze voting as means towards the realization of a goal external to the act of voting itself.

1.1.4. Problems with amending the calculus of voting

Since the decision to vote has virtually no impact on the outside world, it is tempting to explain it in terms of purely psychic benefits. However, I want to claim that this does not adequately explain why so many citizens vote. In my view, there are several problems with such an instrumental rationalization of the decision to vote. Consequently, I agree with Overbye (1995: 371) who stresses that none of the proposed explanations has been able to convince the critics so far.

First, one may legitimately ask what exactly is so fun about voting. Would a hedonistic citizen not be better off enjoying his day as he usually does, rather than spending it in a queue before the voting booth? If voters thoroughly enjoy expressing their political opinions, why do they not massively join political discussion groups? In addition, a civic sense of duty simply cannot be understood in purely hedonistic terms. As moral philosophers know for quite a while now, people who feel they have to obey a duty will often do so even if they derive no satisfaction from it (Blais 2000: 93; Boudon 1997: 222). They simply do not weigh the benefits of fulfilling one’s duty (D) against the costs of doing so (C). They vote because they feel they have to, not because they like doing so30.

Second, this account does not take seriously the thought that an activity can be done purely for its own sake. Because it continues to compare the benefits and costs of voting, it basically suggests that voting is not done for its own sake (Ferejohn & Fiorina 1974: 525). If voting is valued intrinsically, it is not to be understood as a means towards some extrinsic goal, like the satisfaction derived from it. All of the abovementioned accounts lump together the reasons

30 This objection essentially argues that “voters obviously do not consciously impute the

above type of complicated calculations before they decide whether or not to vote” (Overbye 1995: 381). The typical defense is that people do not necessarily maximize their utility in a deliberate manner, but act as if they do (Ferejohn & Satz 1994: 76). I have already shown why I believe this strategy to be fundamentally wrongheaded if one aims to explain actions in terms of reasons that cause these actions to be performed.

for voting into a single calculus of costs and benefits. In doing so, “they obscure the distinction between acting for the sake of some expected advantage to which the action is believed to be a means, and acting for the sake of a principle or from duty – between what Max Weber called Zweckrationalität and Wertrationalität” (Benn 1979: 299). In this respect, I argue in favor of distinction between instrumental and expressive considerations that is as conceptually clear as possible.

Third, and most importantly, this account systematically posits a preference or taste for voting among voters. Simply rephrasing the issue, this comes down to a tautological explanation with no real explanatory power (Blais 2000: 9-10; Boudon 1997: 221; Mueller 2003: 3306; Overbye 1995: 372; Schuessler 2000a: 47). In the end, all it says is that citizens vote if they like to vote and abstain if they do not like to vote. Such an account does not explain the observed behavior in terms of a preference for voting, but derives the presence of the latter from the observed behavior. Systematically postulating that the expression of one’s vote gives satisfaction essentially begs the question. It is an ‘ad hoc’ hypothesis which lacks predictive content and explanatory power: “the very fact that the conventional theory is driven to rely on psychic income raises the question of whether it has anything very interesting to say about psychic income, or whether it merely treats psychic income as a residual category of motivation to be invoked when the theory otherwise gets into trouble” (Margolis 1984: 87). Since it cannot be falsified, its scientific validity is highly questionable. Psychic benefits should not be invoked as the explanatory basis, but should themselves be accounted for (Margolis 1984: 60). In order to avoid that such explanations become completely trivial, one should show why “some people have this kind of motivation more strongly than others” (Barry 1970: