If you read one thing about the structural problem afflicting American elections, including an explanation of the institutional reform most likely to remedy the problem, make it this new analysis.
Hi Ned, you and your colleagues are misreading Anthony Downs when you write "It has become increasingly clear, that Downs’s analysis does not explain what is currently occurring in the United States as elected representatives move further and further from the median voter." Downs's FULL analysis actually explains it quite well. But the strip-mined version that most political scientists use to justify their own work is not really Downs's work. Specifically you and others apparently have forgotten that Downs had proposed an important exception to his well-known "median voter" analysis: what if, he asked, the distribution of voters is not humped in the middle of the ideological spatial market? What if instead the electorate is polarized? In that case, Downs showed, the two parties will “diverge toward the extremes rather than converge on the center. Each party gains more votes by moving toward a radical position than it loses in the center.” When the electorate is polarized, Downs’ model portrayed the distribution of voters as two-humps, equal in size, like a Bactrian camel’s back.
In such a situation, Downs goes on to predict that “regardless of which party is in office, half the electorate always feels that the other half is imposing policies upon it that are strongly repugnant to it.” But in addition, Downs wrote "In this situation, if one party keeps getting reelected, the disgruntled supporters of the other party will probably revolt; whereas if the two parties alternate in office, social chaos occurs, because government policy keeps changing from one extreme to the other.” Thus, Downs concluded, the two party system “does not lead to effective, stable government when the electorate is polarized.” These predictions look presciently familiar when observing US politics today, as many diehard supporters of both the Democrats and Republicans are convinced that the other side is tantamount to evil.
In the ensuing six decades following Downs’ pivotal work, political scientists, editors, pundits, politicos, academic researchers, even a Supreme Court justice (Scalia) selectively strip mined Downs for their own purposes. These neo-Downsians ignored those parts of the Downs model that apparently did not fit in with their preferred vision of America as a nicely-organized, centrist, single-humped electorate. Thus, Downs’ formulation of what happens to a democracy when the electorate is polarized into two voter distribution humps somehow was left on the cutting room floor.
What remained was a half-baked simulacrum of the Downs theory, and the two-party system transmogrified in many minds into a proxy for moderate, majoritarian, centrist government. Down’s median voter acquired a reputation as a political moderate. And the policy passed by that government was presumed to be preferred by a majority of voters. But in fact Downs never did declare that, unequivocally, he always put conditions around it. You might find this short article instructive: "Faulty Textbooks: The Strip Mining of Anthony Downs’ "Economic Theory of Democracy" https://democracysos.substack.com/p/faulty-textbooks-the-strip-mining
In "ordinary" times, this system might be preferable to our current electoral system. However, with respect to partisan division, these are not ordinary times. The existence of Donald Trump in the mix, with his rabidly loyal base, who would happily vote for him no matter what his ideology is (or even in the absence of any ideology), renders any logical assumption about red/blue/purple division moot. And the complicity of most Republican elected officials in his subterfuge serves to cement this division. Any discussion of possible changes to the system that fails to take this situation into account is irrelevant. Just my humble opinion.
Hi Ned, you and your colleagues are misreading Anthony Downs when you write "It has become increasingly clear, that Downs’s analysis does not explain what is currently occurring in the United States as elected representatives move further and further from the median voter." Downs's FULL analysis actually explains it quite well. But the strip-mined version that most political scientists use to justify their own work is not really Downs's work. Specifically you and others apparently have forgotten that Downs had proposed an important exception to his well-known "median voter" analysis: what if, he asked, the distribution of voters is not humped in the middle of the ideological spatial market? What if instead the electorate is polarized? In that case, Downs showed, the two parties will “diverge toward the extremes rather than converge on the center. Each party gains more votes by moving toward a radical position than it loses in the center.” When the electorate is polarized, Downs’ model portrayed the distribution of voters as two-humps, equal in size, like a Bactrian camel’s back.
In such a situation, Downs goes on to predict that “regardless of which party is in office, half the electorate always feels that the other half is imposing policies upon it that are strongly repugnant to it.” But in addition, Downs wrote "In this situation, if one party keeps getting reelected, the disgruntled supporters of the other party will probably revolt; whereas if the two parties alternate in office, social chaos occurs, because government policy keeps changing from one extreme to the other.” Thus, Downs concluded, the two party system “does not lead to effective, stable government when the electorate is polarized.” These predictions look presciently familiar when observing US politics today, as many diehard supporters of both the Democrats and Republicans are convinced that the other side is tantamount to evil.
In the ensuing six decades following Downs’ pivotal work, political scientists, editors, pundits, politicos, academic researchers, even a Supreme Court justice (Scalia) selectively strip mined Downs for their own purposes. These neo-Downsians ignored those parts of the Downs model that apparently did not fit in with their preferred vision of America as a nicely-organized, centrist, single-humped electorate. Thus, Downs’ formulation of what happens to a democracy when the electorate is polarized into two voter distribution humps somehow was left on the cutting room floor.
What remained was a half-baked simulacrum of the Downs theory, and the two-party system transmogrified in many minds into a proxy for moderate, majoritarian, centrist government. Down’s median voter acquired a reputation as a political moderate. And the policy passed by that government was presumed to be preferred by a majority of voters. But in fact Downs never did declare that, unequivocally, he always put conditions around it. You might find this short article instructive: "Faulty Textbooks: The Strip Mining of Anthony Downs’ "Economic Theory of Democracy" https://democracysos.substack.com/p/faulty-textbooks-the-strip-mining
This is called the "center-squeeze effect".
In "ordinary" times, this system might be preferable to our current electoral system. However, with respect to partisan division, these are not ordinary times. The existence of Donald Trump in the mix, with his rabidly loyal base, who would happily vote for him no matter what his ideology is (or even in the absence of any ideology), renders any logical assumption about red/blue/purple division moot. And the complicity of most Republican elected officials in his subterfuge serves to cement this division. Any discussion of possible changes to the system that fails to take this situation into account is irrelevant. Just my humble opinion.