Considering America's Depression-era politics in comparative perspective reinforces the impression that there may have been a good deal less real policy content to "throwing the bums out" than meets the eye. In the U.S., voters replaced Republicans with Democrats and the economy improved. In Britain and Australia, voters replaced Labor governments with conservatives and the economy improved. In Britain and Australia, voters replaced Labor governments with conservatives and the economy improved. In Sweden, voters replaced Conservatives with Liberals, then with Social Democrats, and the economy improved. In the Canadian agricultural province of Saskatchewan, voters replaced Conservatives with Socialists and the economy improved. In the adjacent agricultural province of Alberta, voters replaced a socialist party with a right-leaning funny-money party created from scratch by a charismatic radio preacher, and the economy improved. In Weimar Germany, where economic distress was deeper and longer-lasting, voters rejected all of the mainstream parties, the Nazis seized power, and the economy improved. In every case, the party that happened to be in power when the Depression eased dominated politics for a decade or more thereafter. It seems farfetched to imagine that all these contradictory shifts represented well-considered ideological conversions. A more parsimonious interpretation is that voters simply--and simple-mindedly--rewarded whoever happened to be in power when things got better.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Contingency and Causation
On his Atlantic blog yesterday, Ross Douthat posted an excerpt from an article by Princeton professor Larry Bartels in The Wilson Quarterly ("The Irrational Electorate"). In his article, Bartels argues that sea changes in politics are often driven not by changes in ideology or political philosophy but instead are contingent on other factors, e.g., economic conditions. Surveying the political realignments of the Depression era, Bartels writes,
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9 comments:
And what determines economic conditions--or the fact that people are sometimes likely to continue doing something (or voting for some party) simply out of habit?
Back to the drawing board.
Economic conditions offer a decent explanation for a lot of behavior, but it's still superficial...like the theory, equally valid on the face of it, that history's major events are all determined by sex.
(Flashman notwithstanding.)
Making invidious distinctions between 'superficial' explanations and 'deep' ones seems pointless to me; the more relevant question (to me, at least) is which theory has more explanatory power. In the case of the political realignments Bartels describes, his theory seems to have significant explanatory power. Can't say I'm familiar with the sex explanation you allude to.
Regarding your first two questions, I'm not sure how relevant the first one (about what determines economic conditions) is to the political realignments Bartels discusses in the quoted paragraph. I assume what you are getting at here is that the economic conditions were partly determined by government policies, and that these policies were informed by flawed ideas you can trace back to their origins in philosophy. That may be true, to some extent, but it raises other questions, e.g., why didn't similar economic conditions in previous eras lead to similar political reactions?
Regarding your second question, two points. First, you wouldn't have the sort of political realignments that Bartels describes if a critical mass of voters didn't break with their previous voting patterns. Second, another part of Bartels's paper -- one that deals with the effect of issue ads on voters -- is somewhat relevant here. I planned on writing a separate post about it, but haven't gotten around to it yet. To summarize his point though, research raises doubts about the impact of political philosophy or ideology on the voting decisions of the electorate. This may seem counterintuitive, but apparently, most voters pick a candidate and then adopt that candidate's views on various issues.
"That may be true, to some extent, but it raises other questions, e.g., why didn't similar economic conditions in previous eras lead to similar political reactions?"
The most fundamental answer, and thus the one able to explain the most, is that previous eras were dominated by different ideas.
I noted a few reasons why one should focus on fundamental and not superficial causes at my blog.
Adding on those thoughts to this case, I'll simply say that superficial explanations often contradict one another (as can be seen in your question--why didn't the same economic conditions lead to the same political results).
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The point you might write about is an interesting one--that people pick candidates first and then support their ideas.
I don't agree but I'll be interested in reading it.
The point is similar to the one that says people don't pick most ideas at all, rather they get them from their parents (or peers), right?
Or that people see what is good for their economic interests (in the short term or long) and choose the ideas that would support that.
At least in the sense that both place ideas in a secondary role, if that.
"The most fundamental answer, and thus the one able to explain the most, is that previous eras were dominated by different ideas."
Two more questions raised by this answer. How does this explain the wildly different parties elected to power in the comparative examples Bartels cites? If Bartels is correct that most voters don't vote based on ideas, how do you see these ideas driving political change?
"I don't agree but I'll be interested in reading it."
I'll try to post it today.
Then again, maybe there is causation for the causation. Listen to this flaming liberal:
"While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of “conservative” government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case. So, to paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan: I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me. "
Oh wait. That was Christopher Buckley after endorsing Obama.
Anonymous,
If Christopher Buckley were British, his dissatisfaction with the financial crisis and the war in Iraq would likely prompt him to vote for the conservatives (since these events happened when Labour was in power in Britain). That would be the same "throw the bums out" reaction that Bartels described in the paper I quoted in this post.
Of course! It must have been American dissatisfaction with eight years of prosperity under Clinton that led to the Bush presidency.
Anonymous,
"Of course! It must have been American dissatisfaction with eight years of prosperity under Clinton that led to the Bush presidency."
From the Bartels article:
"...studies of economy-driven voting almost invariably find that voters are strongly influenced by economic conditions during the election year, or even some fraction of it, but mostly ignore how the economy performed over the rest of the incumbent’s term.21"
Recall that by the election of 2000, we'd already had the collapse of the dot-com bubble (that March) and the economy was starting to weaken (it contracted in the third quarter).
Back to Bartels:
"That shortsightedness is not just a psychological quirk; it has significant political consequences. Over the past 60 years, there has been a marked partisan disparity in the timing of income growth, with Democratic presidents presiding over more overall growth (especially for middle-class and working poor people), but Republicans presiding over more growth (especially for affluent people) in presidential election years. Thus, voters’ economic myopia has produced a substantial Republican bias in presidential election results—a bias large enough to have been decisive in three of the nine Republican victories since World War II: in 1952, 1968, and 2000.22"
orcopyt
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