Will I love Democracy for Realists?

The subtitle says it all. While many of us may suspect that American elections are not quite what “Schoolhouse Rock” told us years ago, Achen and Bartels explain it in a clear-eyed, candid fashion.

If you want to understand 2024 (and likely more elections to come), this book is fundamental.

Roughly around sixth grade, most people in the West learn a basic model of how democracy functions.

According to the sixth-grade model, voters each have various interests and values. They then learn how the world works, what politics can and can’t do, and so on. On the basis of their values and information, they form ideologies or general political preferences.

They then seek out and vote for the parties and candidates which will best realize their goals. The parties and candidates in turn run on platforms that appeal to such voters. So, the theory goes, elections turn the popular will… show more.

This book came out after my own, but the authors had already laid out the main themes in papers going back years, so I was familiar with their argument that voters (1) don't know much about politics, (2) don't pay much attention to issues, and (3) therefore base their political choices on something else. What that something else is depends on multiple factors like age, geography, self-interest, whim, and even the weather. The weather explanation is startling. The authors' studies show that droughts and floods affect how people vote. When misfortune frowns on voters they tend to vote against incumbents,… show more.