Author Topic: How democracy really works  (Read 3268 times)

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Offline General Battuta

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How democracy really works
So I'm in the guts of the MIT political science department, going through their data.

And it's really kind of cool.

Citizens are excellent at assessing the performance of politicians and changing their votes correspondingly. If their lives are going badly, they vote out the incumbents. (The issue of whether the incumbents are actually responsible is another one entirely; an analysis I just read apparently demonstrates that the majority of the current deficit actually came from Republican policies.)

Citizens are terrible at assessing policy. They choose candidates based on irrelevant factors like appearance, then - get this - adjust their own policy preferences to follow the candidate's. This works on a broad range of policies, with very rare exceptions like abortion. Same goes for party choices; people pick a party and then bend to match its changing preferences.

Fascinating. Democracy is as much about following the elite as leading them.

Also, for anyone who looks back to the 'true to the Constitution' days of early democracy...lolololololol. I'm reading about how you were supposed to win an election back in the 18th century, which was: you were expected to supply alcohol to voters. James Madison owes his only lost election to his failure to do so in that one case. George Washington won an early Virginia election on the strength of 160 gallons.


 

Offline Sushi

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Re: How democracy really works

Also, for anyone who looks back to the 'true to the Constitution' days of early democracy...lolololololol. I'm reading about how you were supposed to win an election back in the 18th century, which was: you were expected to supply alcohol to voters. James Madison owes his only lost election to his failure to do so in that one case. George Washington won an early Virginia election on the strength of 160 gallons.


I recently listened to "Don't know much about history" on tape (basically a book survey of US history) and the biggest thing I learned is that politics haven't really changed that much over the years. People have been debating the same core issues (such as the extent of federal power) from the very beginning, and there have always been corrupt politicians in spades.


EDIT: What other "irrelevant factors" do people choose on? How good are voters at assessing candidates in terms of how consistent/honest/principled they are, irrelevant of policy?

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: How democracy really works
Quote
EDIT: What other "irrelevant factors" do people choose on?

I should look and find out!

Quote
How good are voters at assessing candidates in terms of how consistent/honest/principled they are, irrelevant of policy?

Pretty good, either when they're told about these factors by a rival, or when assessing past performance. In general these traits fall under 'performance' which citizens are pretty good at.

The theory is that matching on policy is harder because it requires people to actually have opinions of their own on policy, and that's cognitively expensive and fairly rare.

 

Offline FUBAR-BDHR

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Re: How democracy really works
Also, for anyone who looks back to the 'true to the Constitution' days of early democracy...lolololololol. I'm reading about how you were supposed to win an election back in the 18th century, which was: you were expected to supply alcohol to voters. James Madison owes his only lost election to his failure to do so in that one case. George Washington won an early Virginia election on the strength of 160 gallons.

Yep voting used to be held in bars then they put in laws that banned alcohol sales on election day.  While most of those don't exist any more there are still some that do.  Somewhere in WV just had a special election and there was an announcement that alcohol sales would be suspended for the election. 

Personally I vote for the person that annoys me the least.  Call me or rap on my door and there goes any hope of me voting for you.
No-one ever listens to Zathras. Quite mad, they say. It is good that Zathras does not mind. He's even grown to like it. Oh yes. -Zathras

 

Offline StarSlayer

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Re: How democracy really works
Not to mention Andrew Jackson's post inauguration party supposedly was one for the ages.  Something about a lot of free boose, the public being invited to the White House and some giant cheese wheel if I recall correctly.
“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world”

 

Offline Sushi

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Re: How democracy really works

The theory is that matching on policy is harder because it requires people to actually have opinions of their own on policy, and that's cognitively expensive and fairly rare.

Arguably, the whole point of representative government is so that not everyone has to individually research, assess, debate, and measure the results of every single policy. :) So this doesn't seem very surprising to me, or even undesirable.

I know I'd happily vote for someone who disagreed on policy if I thought they were principled and genuinely committed to doing the right thing over their own interests and politics. Those sorts seem pretty rare, though, especially as you move from local government to federal government..

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: How democracy really works

The theory is that matching on policy is harder because it requires people to actually have opinions of their own on policy, and that's cognitively expensive and fairly rare.

Arguably, the whole point of representative government is so that not everyone has to individually research, assess, debate, and measure the results of every single policy. :) So this doesn't seem very surprising to me, or even undesirable.

This is called 'cueing' and is a topic of considerable research.

 
Re: How democracy really works
Shouldn't this thread be titled "How US] democracy really works"

 

Offline Flipside

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Re: How democracy really works
I doubt there's much difference between American voters and, for example, their European counterparts in this particular respect to be honest.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: How democracy really works
Shouldn't this thread be titled "How US] democracy really works"

Nope, the data includes a number of experiments and studies conducted in other countries. I'm not immediately familiar with any statistical tests on the generalizibility, though.

 

Offline Polpolion

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Re: How democracy really works
Citizens are excellent at assessing the performance of politicians and changing their votes correspondingly. If their lives are going badly, they vote out the incumbents. (The issue of whether the incumbents are actually responsible is another one entirely; an analysis I just read apparently demonstrates that the majority of the current deficit actually came from Republican policies.)

What kind of statistics did you find for this? I've been taught that incumbents in legislative positions generally have really high re-election rates in America, perhaps less so when they've screwed things up, but still surprisingly high re-election rates.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: How democracy really works
Citizens are excellent at assessing the performance of politicians and changing their votes correspondingly. If their lives are going badly, they vote out the incumbents. (The issue of whether the incumbents are actually responsible is another one entirely; an analysis I just read apparently demonstrates that the majority of the current deficit actually came from Republican policies.)

What kind of statistics did you find for this? I've been taught that incumbents in legislative positions generally have really high re-election rates in America, perhaps less so when they've screwed things up, but still surprisingly high re-election rates.

The two statements are not contradictory; all that's required for them to be compatible is for incumbents to have a high base re-election rate (they do) but to have it drop when they are in office during economic downturns or political turmoil.

 

Offline Dilmah G

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Re: How democracy really works
Some of this sounds surprisingly like a string of articles I read in the paper when election season was about here, not too long ago.

In particular, it was focusing on factors like the irrelevant **** people were taking into account when placing preferences during opinion polls and the like; the horrendous ear-rings of the Labor female candidate (the incumbent) were rather hilarious a point of call, and then there was the fact that she was a woman, which spawned a whole other tangent of discussion.

And people bending to match party policy is something I see in my very own political science class. :P Which in itself is a hilarious representation of the Australian voting demographic, 70-80% hard-core party supporters with 20% swinging.

Quote
Also, for anyone who looks back to the 'true to the Constitution' days of early democracy...lolololololol. I'm reading about how you were supposed to win an election back in the 18th century, which was: you were expected to supply alcohol to voters. James Madison owes his only lost election to his failure to do so in that one case. George Washington won an early Virginia election on the strength of 160 gallons.
This seems like an extension of pork-barreling. 'I'll spend money on your booze if you vote for me.' Can't say the same thing wouldn't work today in some voting constituencies. ;)

 

Offline Mikes

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Re: How democracy really works
This seems like an extension of pork-barreling. 'I'll spend money on your booze if you vote for me.' Can't say the same thing wouldn't work today in some voting constituencies. ;)

We have a party in Germany that promises exactly that just to get the monetary support in order to actually buy the booze! ;)

(All parties receive funding if they reach a sufficient amount of voters.)

 

Offline MP-Ryan

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Re: How democracy really works
I read the title and thought you might just sum it up with one word:  poorly.  =)
"In the beginning, the Universe was created.  This made a lot of people very angry and has widely been regarded as a bad move."  [Douglas Adams]

 

Offline Flipside

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Re: How democracy really works
Problem is, no other form of governance works any better, we get in the way of our own ideals :(

 

Offline Mefustae

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Re: How democracy really works
Problem is, no other form of governance works any better, we get in the way of our own ideals :(
What is it they say? Democracy is the worst for of government, except for all the others?

 

Offline iamzack

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Re: How democracy really works
Ancient Chinese -style meritocracy!
WE ARE HARD LIGHT PRODUCTIONS. YOU WILL LOWER YOUR FIREWALLS AND SURRENDER YOUR KEYBOARDS. WE WILL ADD YOUR INTELLECTUAL AND VERNACULAR DISTINCTIVENESS TO OUR OWN. YOUR FORUMS WILL ADAPT TO SERVICE US. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.

 

Offline Snail

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Re: How democracy really works
Ancient Chinese -style meritocracy!
It basically still works that way in some places. 1 super important exam, 1 chance.

 

Offline Mars

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Re: How democracy really works
Our economic and government systems could use some renovation however. Parliaments are typically more flexible, more socialized economies in countries of similar wealth have higher quality of life.

Both are well within the confines of Democracy.