Recent Forum Topics › Forums › The Public House › Democracy for Realists
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wv.
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April 29, 2017 at 12:26 am #68016
ZooeyParticipanthttp://press.princeton.edu/titles/10671.html
Abstract:
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 turn on 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.
Achen and Bartels argue that democratic theory needs to be founded on identity groups and political parties, not on the preferences of individual voters. Democracy for Realists provides a powerful challenge to conventional thinking, pointing the way toward a fundamentally different understanding of the realities and potential of democratic government.
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).
April 29, 2017 at 3:57 pm #68066wvParticipantWell to me that kinda misses the point I think about most — that point being that the ‘system’ shapes its citizens in many ways. As soon as we are born the system starts shaping us. And so, yeah, we ‘end up’ with the KIND of voters that article is surely going to describe. But just ‘describing’ them doesnt matter to me. Thats the easy part. I’m more interested in HOW DID THEY GET THAT WAY.
They didnt just ‘choose to be that way’. They were shaped by a corporate-capitalist-system. (education system, corporate-MSM, mega-corporations, financial-institutions, weapons-manufacturers, capitalist-influenced-religions, etc)
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vApril 30, 2017 at 2:08 am #68144
waterfieldParticipant“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. ”
Well Duh. It’s always been that way. We tend to want to associate with those we like (friends, neighbors, relatives, etc) even if we differ in our political views. Hence “Orange County” (where I live) is a conservative hotbed and San Francisco is not. We tend to adopt the view of those we like because we want to be associated with them. Has nothing to do with Capitalism, Corporate blah blah, or any other institutional cynicism. The “system” does not shape us. It’s simply risky behavior to go against those we identify with. Of course there are exceptions (I’m one) but we do pay a price. A lot of this stuff is simply human nature. It’s not something manufactured by the “machine”.
My wife and I attend a lot of social outings where our friends for the most part are independent business owners-most small manufacturing stuff. They all voted for you know who-primarily because of their belief that they would be free from what they consider to be over taxation and too many regulations. I get that. But they are not a product of the machine anymore than I am. They simply come to that place in time from a product of circumstances over their lifetime. To blame the “system” for what’s wrong is to borrow the line that put Trump into office: “there are really simple answers to complicated problems”.
April 30, 2017 at 11:44 am #68171
znModeratorWe tend to adopt the view of those we like because we want to be associated with them. Has nothing to do with Capitalism, Corporate blah blah, or any other institutional cynicism. The “system” does not shape us.
I have to say, W, and with all due respect, all of that just rings as being patently false. Besides the issue isn’t “neighborhoods” or “friends” or “people we like”…it has a lot more to do with primary identifiers, like class, race, and so on—things which come with interests, as in it’s in our interests to do x or y, it’s not in our interests to do y or z. Anyway what people DO tend to do, unless they find ways to get outside of themselves, is to repeat their own local worldviews as if they were godly truths. The way you get outside of your own narrow worldview and the mistaken idea that it gives you worldly wisdom (and not just a tilted perspective) is to learn about different ways of thinking and living and seeing. But to do THAT, you have to want to. It’s not easy because most of us just sit back and go “ah yes the world is as I think it is, naturally and of course.”
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April 30, 2017 at 1:40 pm #68176ZooeyParticipantYeah, I second what zn said, Waterfield. I saw your post last night, but was too tired to respond to it. I have to say I find it surprising anyone would argue that the “system” doesn’t shape us. If that were true, there would be no such thing as culture. We are largely shaped by the value system of our society. And even the people who think independently still have the “system” as their initial platform for asking questions.
I haven’t read the book, but I would guess that people who identify with the image of being tough, independent, and strong identify with the Republican Brand, as do a lot of religious types, and nationalists. People who identify themselves as caring, compassionate, compromising for the greater good, and so on, identify with the Democrat Brand. I think that is just largely true.
Meanwhile, study after study shows us that Americans, when it comes to actual policy positions, are largely to the left – significantly – of the Democrat Party. On all kinds of social and economic policies. But they continue to vote for politicians who oppose those policies. Why? Because they identify with the Brand. Just as people can’t tell the difference between one cola and another in blind taste tests, but are fiercely loyal to a single brand that you cannot convince them does not taste vastly superior to another brand, people’s own self-perception lines up with the marketing of the political parties.
The authors also argue – and I agree with them – that if their Brand offers a policy view in contrast to the wishes of an individual, that person will adjust his view on the policy rather than vote for a candidate from a different party. “Well, I’m sure the President has some inside information that we don’t, so he knows what he’s doing….”
So I can’t tell if we mean something different by the terms “system” and “machine” than you do, but it looks like it. I don’t think any of us sees the “system” as a conspiracy, or a “designed” force (although there are clearly people who have learned to manipulate the masses through Public Relations in all its many guises). It evolved into what it is, and it is mostly self-replicating. Just like culture is. Now it does morph, and it can be nudged this way and that through media exposure, and so on, but it mostly just reproduces its value system in the people who grow up in it.
April 30, 2017 at 6:45 pm #68189wvParticipantWell, I’m not gonna even argue the idea that the ‘system’ shapes us. Its just not worth arguing about. Its been written about in so many ways, by so many thinkers that….well ya know.
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“Again I want to emphasize that the study of propaganda must be conducted within the context of a technological society. Propaganda is called upon to solve problems created by technology, to play on maladjustments, and to integrate the individual into a technological world.”
― Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes“The so-called consumer society and the politics of corporate capitalism have created a second nature of man which ties him libidinally and aggressively to the commodity form. The need for possessing, consuming, handling and constantly renewing the gadgets, devices, instruments, engines, offered to and imposed upon the people, for using these wares even at the danger of one’s own destruction, has become a “biological” need.”
― Herbert Marcuse -
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