On May 5, 2008, at 11:31 PM, T. Bosco wrote:
> the reasoning capabilities of voters
Ever read Larry Bartels on this topic?
<http://www.princeton.edu/~bartels/papers.htm>
You may never think the same of the reasoning capabilities of voters if you do.
E.g.:
<http://www.princeton.edu/~bartels/thinking.pdf>
"It Feels Like We're Thinking" (with Christopher Aachen)
> Abstract
>
> The familiar image of rational electoral choice has voters weighing
> the com-
> peting candidates' strengths and weaknesses, calculating
> comparative dis-
> tances in issue space, and assessing the president's management of
> foreign
> affairs and the national economy. Indeed, once or twice in a
> lifetime, a
> national or personal crisis does induce political thought. But most
> of the
> time, the voters adopt issue positions, adjust their candidate
> perceptions,
> and invent facts to rationalize decisions they have already made.
> The im-
> plications of this distinction - between genuine thinking and its
> day-to-day
> counterfeit - strike at the roots of both positive and normative
> theories of
> electoral democracy.
I told Bartels, after he was on my radio show, that his work made me despair of the possibilities for self-rule. He replied that he thought voter irrationality was "kind of charming."
Doug