Sunday, October 23, 2011
Tunisians saw voting as rational on their first democratic election
Today, millions of Tunisians streamed to the polls to cast their votes on the first democratic election the country has had since 1994. As the WSJ article mentions (link on title) more than 80% of the registered voters went to the polls to vote. Given the higher the expected turnout and the lack of experience in conducting elections, people had to wait up to 2.5 hours in line in order to vote. Regardless of the wait time the lines to vote went around the buildings and people were excitedly waiting. Furthermore, there were more than 11,000 candidates and 80 political parties but only a few were known to most Tunisians.
Johnson, in his chapter "Voting, Rational Abstention, and Rational Ignorance" argues that it is rational to abstain. In order to decide whether to vote or not people weight the costs and the benefits and for the benefits from voting are very small compared to the costs. Thus, it is rational not to vote. The costs for Tunisians to vote were very high: they had to spend a really long time waiting in line, they had to walk or drive to the polls and they had to take time off their Sunday to go vote. However, Tunisians went and voted. Why? I think that the benefits of voting for Tunisians were more than just having a candidate win. Even though the know that their vote will not make a difference (and thus the benefits are very small compared to the costs) they voted because they were supporting democracy for the first time in years. Also, there is the possibility that there were social pressures that made people vote. The supporters of democracy may have pressured people socially to go to the polls.
Even though Johnson's theory of rational abstention did not hold for Tunisians, his theory of rational ignorance does hold. Tunisia had over 11,000 candidates and 80 parties, which makes it very costly to learn about the parties and candidates. Therefore, voters knew very few of the candidates and very little about their campaigns. Thus, candidates voted but they were ignorant about the candidates.
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2 comments:
I think the utility gained from participating in "historic" or "landmark" elections would be higher. It would give someone more utility to have voted in a country's first election or in an election that was touted as "most important in history," etc.
Another interesting idea comes if you examine this article in perspective of the median voter theorem. Because there are over 8,000 candidates, it is much more likely that every person's view would be represented. The candidate that gets the most votes in this election is either located at one of the largest nodes of voters, or the voters are ignorant as to which candidates represent them best (most likely).
While statistically speaking a single vote will not be a deciding factor in large scale elections, I believe that in this case it is inaccurate to say that the Tunisians voted despite knowing their votes would count for little or even nothing. This blog seems to infer that the Tunisian population voted at large in order to show support for democracy (an external factor – i.e. like the social pressure hypothesis) and not because one’s individual benefit from voting was greater than one’s individual cost. While it might sound a little hedonistic (or altruistic depending on how one views it), I believe Johnson’s reasons for rational abstention were contemplated, and the large majority of Tunisia’s population decided that the marginal benefit was indeed greater than the marginal cost. Whereas the blog states that “their vote will not make a difference,” I believe that the difference is in the effect that this election will have on the rest of Africa. I agree with the fact that high voting turnout was due in large part to the magnitude of this first free election in years (if not, in fact, the first “real” free election ever), however the point of this comment was to point out my belief that Johnson’s theory of rational abstention holds here. I simply think that the people of Tunisia believe that the benefit of their vote (to themselves, Tunisia, and the rest of the world as a whole) is truly greater than the cost. The voters internalized the current political climate and made a decision – Vote!
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