Democracy for Realists
Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartel offer a challenging narrative to what they call the romanticism or “folk theory” of democracy. As an individual not well-versed in politics, I can honestly say that I have been one of those less-informed individuals when it came to truly considering why democracy was . the best form of government. I knew that lobbying and party loyalty existed, but I never stopped to consider the faults of democracy here in the United States and around the world.
Two Parts
The political science authors posit two failed ideas when it comes to how the public as a whole views democracy. The first, “folk theory” suggests that elections reveal the will of the people and their preference on current issues. Once informed, the voters will assess their own stance on each issue in comparison to the candidates’ stances and vote accordingly. The issue with this ideal is that voters do not have the time or the willpower to be educated enough on all policy issues to fully fit the bill of the ideal democratic voter. Between the myriad issues discussed in politics as well as simple time constraints in daily life, it’s just not possible to know something about everything. The authors go through a few alternative methods suggested over the years, such as taking cues from those more informed, but debunked each in succession. An uninformed vote do not fit the bill when it comes to creating an ideal democracy. They also discredit the idea that errors in voting from both party sides will cancel each other out as long as the median opinions are the same. As history shows, the median opinions are not always the same lead to uninformed random election outcomes.
The second theory of democracy, retrospective voting, focuses more on voter cognition. In this theory, voters access the past performance of the candidate to determine if they deserve to be reelected. Obviously with this idea comes the pitfalls of how the voter assesses past performance- do they understand/know if crime rates fell, do they know if prices of wheat in the Midwest rose exponentially, etc. The authors also give evidence suggesting that random events may also affect how the voter discerns past performance, including natural occurrences such as droughts and floods as well as economic downturns. This line of thinking leaves the door open to incumbents stacking the deck with positive decisions that trickle down to the public right before an election to increase the voter’s perception of a job-well-done by the official and shirking this duty during the early portion of their term.
An Alternative Theory
As the authors point out, the framers of the constitution understood that individuals are prone to “groups” and a sense of place. It’s like going to a college with a rival school and instantly feeling a separateness from the competitor. Similarly, identities are formed in society based on aspects such as race, gender, religion or ethnicity. The individual will then adhere to the group’s direction of voting. Partisanship can also be a strong driving group identity. They believe that their party is a group of people that they belong with. Strangers in Their Own Land also touches on this idea of belonging, attributing it as one of the reasons that individuals in the South give so much support for Trump- middle-aged, white, religious individuals felt like they finally had a group to belong to again. This group think is then passed on to generations with only huge events, such as Watergate, to turn the tide of the group-think. Even then, some individuals will hold fast to their group loyalty, choosing to support the mistaken leaders. The issue with this idea is that voters will then alienate themselves to the group think. I believe one of the problems with this book is that it does not mention every outlet available to individuals in how they get their information, including the media. They stay so in tune with certain elites and media outlets that they never get to fully experience or consider the other side of the debate. Essentially, their ideas on policies are created by their political parties and not vice versa- which isn’t the prettiest picture for democracy. This problem has further exacerbated the polarization that exists between the two political parties. It’s hard for people to abandon their biases and preferences to hear the other side out- especially, the authors found, among well-educated individuals.
The authors touched on how this group-think could also affect interpretations of facts, which becomes a little scary and is exactly what’s happening in regard to climate change. When partisan loyalty and insidious motives can get in the way of acknowledging known facts, that’s a serious problem in regards to climate change. The authors used an example of whether or not Clinton raised or decreased the budget deficit, a known fact, and the answers changed based off of which political party the respondents belonged to- Democrats looked more favorable on whether he decreased the deficit as opposed to Republicans who judged more harshly. Even though he did decrease the deficit- a known fact.
Not All Doom and Gloom
The authors acknowledge that while the current perspective of democracy comes with flaws, there are benefits to the system including the voters better accepting the candidates once in office and deterring those in office from giving themselves too much power. Additionally, because they have terms, the public officials will be deterred from serious misconduct and neglection of their duties (some still make errors in judgement, however).
To aid in fixing the semi-broken system, the authors suggest decreasing funding abilities from lobbying groups and getting back to a more equal system of pushing ideas and opinions forward. It should not be only the wealthy and powerful that decide the direction of the nation.
I agree with their opinion, but wonder if even this would be enough to fix the issue. I personally have no idea what would be a better system as I have little background in political science, but I wonder as to why the issue hasn’t been discussed more. Perhaps I just haven’t been in the circles that discuss the issue, but that our democracy itself doesn’t seem to be working as effectively as it should leads me to think that an enormous amount of research needs to go into improving the system. Although I suppose that wouldn’t be to the benefit of those in power now and groups that know how to work the system leaving little incentive to conduct such research and make these changes. The public at large is also not easily moved once entrenched in a set system.
Either way, as an environmental communicator, I see groupthink in relation to issues every day and believe that it is a problem. As communicators, it’s our job to provide as much unbiased information as possible on issues to at least attempt to break the polarization barrier and help make citizens more well informed. Whether or not that helps in the case of national democracy remains to be seen, but it may have an impact locally, which is a bit more optimistic than the book.