The collective action problem is traditionally described through the Prisoner’s Dilemma – both parties could achieve the best outcome if they had some sort of communication available to them, or if they could trust the other participant to act in the best interests of the group. In reality however, the incentives provided for betrayal mean that, for the large part, the participants minimise their risk by not acting in the group’s best interests, and rather following a selfish strategy.
In the same way, consider an election in New Zealand. Because I realise that my vote is effectively worthless (it will almost never influence the result of an election), isn’t a better use of my time to stay at home and read a book? This assumes, however, that the elections will proceed whether or not I participate. If everyone thought the same way I did, either no one would participate (group interest failure) or so few people would participate that the result would be illegitimate in that the elected rulers would not carry the mandate of the public.
But people still vote. Elections still happen. Is this because people attach some sort of arbitrary value to ‘democratic participation’, even though casting a meaningless vote every 3 years hardly seems to count? Is it because there is a public fear of ‘lack of representation’, even though parliaments in general have an arguably poor record of tracking their population’s wishes accurately anyway?
The lecture (20/3) got me thinking deeper about the problem with Plato’s assertion that people, in general, do not vote in society’s best interests: “Most people would also not be motivated to vote for what is good for society even if they knew it as long as they thought it harmed their interests.” I believe this is another form of the collective action problem – even if people all vote (perhaps by legal requirement), there is no guarantee that people will act in society’s best interests.
The argument is typically made that, even if people vote selfishly for their own interests, the end result is a government that acts in society’s interests because it is representative of its members’ individual preferences. I do not see how this logically follows, and believe that, as Plato says, good governance is for a large part a matter of chance.
If this is true, it is a somewhat depressing picture for advocates of democratic elections as the way to better governance. Perhaps the US and its recent push for democracy around the world has only come about as a matter of a chance correlation between democracy and peace in recent years.
Togolese man voting in 2007 parliamentary elections - people still vote despite Togo's history of having one leader (Eyadéma) in power for 42 years. Eyadéma is now dead - will democracy create better government for the people of Togo?
Tricky, remember this is partly an empirical question, not just a theoretical one. If the theory suggests that elections do not work, but the reality is that they do work to improve governance, then so much the worse for the theory! We would have to figure out which of our assumptions is wrong in that case.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure you wanted to imply this, but of course elections were meaningless during Eyadema's rule (he was very much a dictator). Arguably it is more rational to vote now that he is gone, no?
Xavier,
ReplyDeleteMy theoretical argument is hardly meant to be the defining answer on the topic - I just wanted to see whether anyone agreed/disagreed with the propositions:
> People are irrational when they participate in elections where they will have no effect on the result.
> People vote in their interests as opposed to society's interests, and this is bad for society.
> Good governance is more a matter of chance than of rational public elections.
I don't know whether these are true, though I could think of arguments why they might be. I also don't know whether elections improve governance (as commonly believed).
I was hoping for some other input into the matter to help my resolve my dilemma - I don't know whether my argument (theory) is false, or whether the commonly believed situation of elections leading to good governance (empirical) is false, or both. All I know is that something doesn't add up, and I'm not sure what.
P.S. Regarding Togo: Wikipedia disagrees with the "more rational to vote" statement. The new president is, coincidentally, Eyadéma's son!
"In the election, Gnassingbé took slightly more than 60% of the votes according to official results. The RPT refused to allow oversight during the counting of the ballots. The EU and the Carter Center deemed the elections to be fraudulent. Mass protests by the coalition of opposition parties led to the killing of over 500 citizens by security forces. 40,000 refugees fled to neighboring Benin and Ghana, most of whom have since been repatriated despite concerns."
Also:
"Many believe that [constitutional presidential replacement] Natchaba did not want to come back to Togo due to fears of assassination by the Faure clan. The army wanted him to resign his position and allow Faure to legally take over. The African Union denounced Faure's assumption of power as a military coup."
More rational to vote? Maybe, but only if you 'vote' for the right candidate!
Touche on the Togo point - I should have looked it up!
ReplyDeleteIt may still be rational to vote in Togo but for reasons unrelated to the performance of the government (e.g., not to get in trouble with the authorities).
As for your first question, look at the work of Donald Wittmann. There's a 1989 article of his in the Journal of Political Economy that addresses your arguments (JSTOR link here). Not that you will be convinced, but the arguments are worth engaging. (He also published a book expanding on them in 1995).