Larry M. Bartels

Bartels and Achen challenge what they call the “folk theory of democracy.” The “folk theory” seems to have its roots in the idea of the “rational man” — an Enlightenment idea, certainly, but one that seems to have made its way into popular politics. The idea is that democracy works (when it does) via choices of representatives or directly of policies as informed by their interests and values. Representatives and policies then reflect those choices — the government embodies show more and enacts the will of the people.

Then they undertake a quantitative study of the validity of that folk theory. They actually examine two theories of rational voter behavior.

The first is policy voting — that, in simple terms, voters vote for candidates with whom they share policy positions more than alternative candidates.

Policy voting fails in part because voters are unable or don’t take the time to discern the policy positions of candidates. And in fact, there is little actual policy alignment between voters and the candidates they vote for to support the hypothesis that such a thing is behind voters’ behavior. This point echoes what Bartels showed in his earlier book, Unequal Democracy — that the policy positions of members of the House of Representatives do not correlate well with those of their constituents (particularly their lower income constituents).

In fact, foreshadowing some later discussions on group identity and group influence, Achen and Bartels hint that where there is agreement between voters and candidates on policies, the arrow of fit and influence may go in the opposite direction. Voters may not choose candidates who reflect their policy positions so much as adopt policy positions held by the candidates they choose.

The second theory of rational voter behavior is retrospective rationality. Voters assess the performance of office holders and vote them in or out depending on performance, viewed in terms of the voters’ individual or collective welfare.

Retrospective rationality fails in part because voters do not separate factors influencing their welfare that are due to the office holders’ action from those that are not. Famously, Woodrow Wilson lost re-election votes in New Jersey’s shore area in 1916 due to shark attacks on swimmers. Wilson had nothing to do with the attacks of course, but statistical analysis shows that in fact he did suffer at the polls. Voters in the area felt things weren’t going well, and they blamed the office holder. Achen and Bartels of course cite other cases, including a century long correlation of drought or severe rainfall with voters’ behavior that punished incumbents.

The second half of the book tries to pick up the pieces.

Suppose the critique of “folk democracy” is correct. Voting behavior is not rational, in either sense of policy voting or retrospective assessment. What then? For some, the obvious response is to re-assert what has been disproven, but this time as a “should” rather than an “is”. What we need is a more educated, more “rational” voter. Some readers may even at this point simply congratulate themselves as bucking the evidence, because they view themselves as exceptions, well-informed, rational voters. In fact, though, as Achen and Bartels show, the politically more informed voters are more, not less, likely to fail tests of rational voting behavior. Raising the information level of voters won’t correct the problem.

By contrast, Achen and Bartels pursue a “realist” theory of democracy. “In our view, a realist theory of democracy must be founded on a realistic theory of political psychology. At present, nothing of that kind exists.” (p. 230). They don’t pretend to have such a theory of political psychology themselves. But they believe they can begin. No such theory, they believe, can ignore the role of group identity. Research shows too clearly that policy positions, the starting point in the folk theory, are not the starting point at all, but are rather themselves heavily influenced if not produced by group identity. We adopt the policy positions we adopt, in large part because of the social group(s) with which we identify.

Of course this is ideological anathema to individualists (themselves a group, of course, no matter how some would like to deny it). But Achen and Bartels stand on realist grounds, and they subject their hypothesis to case studies. These case studies are the partisan political realignments of the New Deal in the 1930s, Kennedy’s Catholicism as a point of contention in 1960, the collapse of the solid Democratic south following the Jim Crow era, and the emergence of abortion as a powerful issue in the 1980s and 1990s. In each instance, they find compellng evidence, in the data, of powerful group influence.

So what direction would all of this lead us in, if we maintain a democratic ideology? As the authors argue, we must pay much more attention to the roles of groups in generating political positions and policies. “Groups” will include everything from political parties to unions to PACs to lobbyists to more informal citizen, professional, and business groups.

How do these groups influence the thinking of the voting public, and how do they influence the policies of the political parties in power? In particular Achen and Bartels recommend applying scrutiny to the role of money (and other forms of inordinate power) in politics — some groups are advantaged in their ability to influence, obviously, by their ability to speak more often, more loudly, and with more skill than others. As a consequence they are in a position to advance their group interests more effectively. Doing anything about them is more easily said than done, of course, for the very reasons Achen and Bartels have cited.

Bartels and Achen believe in democracy, and they are trying to determine how to help make it work. They believe in democracy in the sense that they believe a government that responds to and represents the interests of its people can be a positive force in their lives. Their obvious chagrin is with the fact, as shown in studies of voter behavior and the responsiveness of elected government, we neither have a responsive government nor do we behave at the polls in a way that will give us one.

I think the critique is a needed one. There is a need for throwing a wrench into our popular political discourse. We toss around tired ideological claims and perceptions as self-proclaimed liberals, libertarians, conservatives or whatever like blunt and tired tools, even deluding ourselves into thinking our “side” of the debate to be enlightened. It is too easy to claim that the public, as a whole, is too uninformed or doesn’t have sufficient time to educate itself for its role in a democratic system. Achen and Bartels don’t deny that that is the case, but their point directs us away from such a fatiguing defeatism.

Their arguments regarding the role of groups are not as tight, I think, as their critique of rational voting behavior. The notion of a “group” is itself pretty slippery and pretty complicated. I belong to many groups, with many associated identities — everything from explicit political affiliations to geographic identities, professional associations, cultural identities, and on and on. “My group identity”, if we can speak of it in any unified way, might best be seen as some sort of complex vector space rather than a simple assignment to some uber-identity.

With that in mind, I think Achen and Bartels do their best job here as challenging us to think differently about political behavior. The simple model of individual political rationality doesn’t work. And its failure isn't a matter of our failing to behave properly as voters — it fails because it is false to human political behavior per se. We don’t fall into the influence of groups because we fail to behave adequately as rational individuals. The influence of groups is simply an aspect of human behavior (I would even say human rational behavior, although that would get us into a much bigger argument about what constitutes “rationality” and whether it can have inherently social aspects or must properly be conceived on the scale of the individual).

Nothing could be more critical in reading this book than including yourself as a subject. It would be too easy to say that Achen and Bartels are talking about other people, not me. That’s not true. In reading their book, I see that tendency — “Most people fail to live up to rational standards, but I know I do.” But I am just like everyone else — I certainly have group identities, they certainly influence my perceptions, my judgements, and my political behavior. Thinking otherwise would be unbearably smug. As the authors say, “It is a book about the conceptual limitations of human beings — including the authors of this book and its readers.” show less

An eye-opening book. Bartels makes 2 major points:

- Partisan politics make a significant difference in income growth and income distribution. This is contrary to economic reductionism and some popular belief, i.e., that the economy will do what it does regardless of who we elect as president. The story is not good for Republicans and conservatives, but this is not an ideological argument -- it's statistical analysis.

- There is no statistical evidence to claim that elected representatives show more (Democratic or Republican) pay any direct attention to the views of the lower third of income earners in their constituencies. That lower third shares a consistently diminishing portion of income growth and has no discernible share in political decisions made by their elected representatives (in Congress).

Along the way, Bartels offers an alternative answer to the "What's the Matter with Kansas?" question -- Thomas Frank's book -- why voters (at least before the last election) vote for Republican candidates who do not appear to represent their best economic interests. Franks had said that, with those voters, "cultural value" issues (abortion, school prayer, etc.) had over-ridden economic interests. Bartels, again through statistical analysis, finds that those voters are actually voting their economic interests, but through a "myopic" lens -- voters' behaviors reflect election year economic performance to the exclusion of other years. Republican presidential candidates benefit from disproportionate economic growth during election years, while not paying the price of low or even negative growth and increasing inequality over the full course of their administrations. Democrats, despite producing higher overall income growth across all income segments and lower inequality, suffer from relatively poor growth during election years. show less

Democracy For Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government takes a long hard look at our cherished notions about democracy and stomps them into ashes. However, as painful as the process is, any long observer of politics and elections will know they are telling us, with substantial evidence to make their case, some very hard truths. For those of us who hope for a more just world, it is time to pay attention.

There is no good news here. The authors Christopher H. Achen and Larry show more M. Bartels analyze decades of electoral data and research, their own and that of other political scientist researchers. From shark attacks to deficits, Achen and Bartels demonstrate that voters lack the information and skills needed to make informed, rational decisions. Even the most informed and politically engaged voters vote based more on group identity than ideology or issue preferences. In fact, people choose their parties often based on social identity and then adjust their policy preferences to match their party. In contrast to most of the pundits, Achen and Bartels recognize that whiteness is a social identity and identity politics are not limited to people of color and women.

Aches and Bartels believe that most reforms are misguided, adding to the problem rather than improving it. Reducing the power of political parties has reduced the pressure to compromise and made the partisan divide wider. It has also made politicians less responsive to voters.

I can see this happening here in Oregon, the increased use of initiative and referendum has led to fiscal chaos, with voters demanding spending projects at the same time they vote for tax cuts. Referendum has led to a passive legislature who no longer tries to address the failed revenue system because there is no reward for having the political courage to vote for taxes when they will be referred and defeated at the next election. Likewise, many reformers want term limits, stripping politicians of expertise and empowering lobbyists. Reducing the power of parties has led the demagogue Trump whom no responsible party would nominate, the end of compromise and hyper-partisanship.

They argue that reform should recognize the importance of parties. I am sure the clamor to eliminate super delegates is exactly the opposite of the reform necessary. We saw the powerlessness of Republican super delegates to save their party. The removal of ear marks has reduced the power of party discipline to govern efficiently and effectively – damaging our national credit rating.

Democracy For Realists is not happy reading. It takes our glib truisms such as the cure for the problems of democracy is more democracy. I think recognizing that it is impossible for voters to understand every issue, it makes sense to strengthen parties as a proxy because they do cluster ideologically. There is expertise and experience, and if the parties are stronger, there is more accountability. Sadly, it seems the tide is going in the wrong direction, toward a more and more disassociated electorate, with weaker and weaker parties, and ever-increasing power of the plutocrats and interest groups.

This is an important book that I would wish everyone read, though the authors made no effort whatsoever to be readable for the general public. This is so important, I wish they could have made more effort to write a book that would be read by a broader audience than activists and politic professionals.

★★★★
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Many current conceptions of democracy are based on the idea that "Ordinary people have preferences about what their governments should do. They choose leaders who will do those things, or they enact their preferences directly in referendums"(p.1). This book provides a dispassionate, social-scientific critique of that idea. The authors show on several fronts (utilizing primarily US election statistics) that this democratic ideal is far too demanding to have any basis in reality. Whether the show more mechanism is democratic representation, direct democracy or retrospective accountability, the ability of voters to rationally control governmental decision-making is almost nonexistent.

The book gets off to a good start from that vantage point, but some of the chapters in the middle are a bit superfluous. In chapter 6 on "economic voting", the authors compare election results against macroeconomic data. It seems to me that this comparison rests on the specious assumption that the state of the economy was the only thing voters could have been concerned with when they voted. Chapter 7 then analyses depression-era economic and election statistics at a level of detail which only political science specialists could find interesting.

Thankfully, the book again becomes more interesting towards the end. The authors argue that the true psychological basis of voting behaviour does not lie in individual preferences, but in group identity. In deciding whom to vote for, people first identify themselves with a group, and then vote according to this group allegiance. Political parties are at the center of group identification. Instead of responding to the preferences of the people, they set the parameters for those preferences.

The authors do not (yet) present a realistic theory of democracy which would avoid the errors of earlier theories. Nevertheless, the last chapter of the book has many interesting conclusions which are bound to stimulate a lot of useful discussion. show less