Customer Reviews

An Economic Theory of Democracy

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Down's Economic Theory of Democracy is an easy to read introdution to the basics of voting theory. It is accessible to the casual reader as well as the hardcore acedemic. It's take on the electoral competition have become staples of high school civis as well as acedemic political theory.

Down's most famous innovation is the result that two party competition leads to both parties offering the same platform in order to maximise votes.

0-----25-----50-----75----100 ----------Rep--Dem-----------

This formulation is actually the Hotelling spatial competition model applied to elections. (I thought the economists may be interested!) Morover it froms the basis fro the median voter theorem.

An Economic Theory of Democracy is among the most influential books in political science. It is also among the most misunderstood. The book has 300 pages of content. The famous median voter theorem represents three of them. The remaining 297 pages involve extensions, limitations and generalizations -- exactly the sort of thing that most critics think it lacks. In the end, the book is really about the problems of limited information rather than about a unidimensional spatial model.

I was assigned several chapters from this book to read for one of my political science classes. I can't say I've come across any other books like this that describe the nature of electoral politics and realignments when they occur.

My professor did mention that this book revolutionized just how we view the electoral process. A good read, one that I would recommend. Diagrams are useful.

I just finished writing a critique on this book for a core political science class and it's definitely a classic. I would recommend it to all political science majors and anybody interested in voting behavior. But again, why is it so expensive?

Classic, empirical work in political science. This book is essential for any high school civics teacher, undergraduate political science major, or graduate student ... but why on EARTH is it $40 used?

Downs is the seminal piece in rat choice voting behavior - and for good reason. A clear understanding of the Downs theories of voting ties together many strands of work and allows for a good framework for scholars who follow him.

The book is a must read for political scientists and for anyone who wants to understand the voting literature.