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A Note on the Empirical Adequacy of the Expressive Theory of Voting Behavior

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2008

Richard Hudelson
Richard Hudelson
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota, Duluth
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Extract

In their article, Geoffrey Brennan and Loren Lomasky (1985, p. 199) present an alternative to market theories of voting behavior. Contrary to market theories which view the voter as acting to maximize the expected self-interest, the alternative view sees voting as fundamentally an act of self-expression: “Voting, like speech, is an expressive activity providing an outlet for one's moral sentiments. We suggest that it is the expressive return to a vote that frequently determines the behavior of individuals in large-number electorates.”

Type
Discussions
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , April 1987 , pp. 127 - 130
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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References

REFERENCES

Brennan, G., and Lomasky, L. 1985. “The Impartial Spectator Goes to Washington: Toward A Smithian Theory of Electoral Behavior.” Economics and Philosophy 1:189–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar