Altruism and Self-Interest in Democracies Individual Participation i
Individuals have little incentive to vote, acquire political information or contribute campaign funds, because their vote has very little chance of affecting the outcome of an election. Jankowski offers an explanation and evidence for political participat
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Altruism and Self-Interest in Democracies Individual Participation in Government
Richard Jankowski
Palgrave
macmillan
ALTRUISM AND SELF-INTEREST IN DEMOCRACIES Copyright © Richard Jankowski, 2015. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-40318-6
All rights reserved. First published in 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-68049-8 DOI 10.1057/9781137391537
ISBN 978-1-137-39153-7 (eBook)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jankowski, Richard, 1946– Altruism and self-interest in democracies : individual participation in government / Richard Jankowski. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Political participation—Philosophy. 2. Voting research. 3. Altruism— Political aspects. 4. Democracy. I. Title. JF799.J36 2015 323⬘.042—dc23
2015001012
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: July 2015 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To all my teachers, without whom this work would not be possible, and to Diane Decker who is always editing my grammar
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C ON T E N T S
List of Figures and Tables
ix
Introduction
1
One
Why Participate in Politics? Beyond Self-Interest
9
Two
Why Vote? The Evidence
25
Three Why Become Politically Informed?
47
Four
The Postelection Phase: Public Interest Groups
65
Five
A Gene for Altruism?
95
Six
Altruism and Redistributive Government Policies
109
Seven Altruistic Conservatives:Varieties of Conservatism
121
Eight Nine
An Epistemic Defense of Democracy: Democracies Do It Better?
137
Representative Democracy: Electoral and Postelectoral
153
Notes
165
Bibliography
173
Index
187
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FI GU R E S A N D TA B LE S
Figures 2.1 5.1
Mixed-strategy voting probability Net benefits from public good provision
43 100
Tables 2.1 Democratic versus Republican support for altruism 2.2 Logistic regression analyzing role of altruism in turnout 3.1 Regression analyzing role of altruism in acquisition of political information 4.1 Group membership and altruism 4.2 Group membership, various work types, and altruism 4.3 Contributing money and other forms of political participation 4.4 Altruism and political ideology 5.1 Altruistic and nonaltruistic groups 6.1 Fractionalization hypothesis 6.2 National ID hypothesis 6.3 Pride and income
28
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