Christopher H. Achen, Larry M. Bartels

Democracy for Realists

Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government (New Afterword by the Authors)

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Democracy for Realists assails the romantic folk-theory at the heart of contemporary thinking about democratic politics and government, and offers a provocative alternative view grounded in the actual human nature of democratic citizens. Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels deploy a wealth of social-scientific evidence, including ingenious original analyses of topics ranging from abortion politics and budget deficits to the Great Depression and shark attacks, to show that the familiar ideal of thoughtful citizens steering the ship of state from the voting booth is fundamentally misguided. They demonstrate that voters - even those who are well informed and politically engaged - mostly choose parties and candidates on the basis of social identities and partisan loyalties, not political issues. They also show that voters adjust their policy views and even their perceptions of basic matters of fact to match those loyalties. When parties are roughly evenly matched, elections often turnon irrelevant or misleading considerations such as economic spurts or downturns beyond the incumbents' control; the outcomes are essentially random. Thus, voters do not control the course of public policy, even indirectly.

Produktdetails

• Princeton Studies in Political Behavior
• Verlag: Princeton University Press
• Revised ed
• Seitenzahl: 424
• Erscheinungstermin: September 2017
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 203mm x 136mm x 33mm
• Gewicht: 357g
• ISBN-13: 9780691178240
• ISBN-10: 0691178240
• Artikelnr.: 47739438

Autorenporträt

Christopher H. Achen is the Roger Williams Straus Professor of Social Sciences and professor of politics at Princeton University. His books include The European Union Decides. Larry M. Bartels holds the May Werthan Shayne Chair of Public Policy and Social Science at Vanderbilt University. His books include Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age (Princeton).

Rezensionen

"For decades, political scientists have blasted away at electoral models based primarily on the idea of rational choice. In the most recent and sophisticated entry in the field, Democracy for Realists, Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels argue that even well-informed and politically engaged voters mostly choose candidates based on their social identities and partisan loyalties. Judging from the 2016 polls, that theory looks pretty good."--E.J. Dionne, Washington Post