Hey Steve, thanks for this clarification of Down's real model. Of course, we don't really have a nice, tidy bactrian-camel-two-equal-hump distribution either, but something more complex, with larger and smaller bumps distributed throughout the Left-Right spectrum. It would be interesting to see an actual graphic representation of how US voters are distributed, based on self-identification and voting patterns.
Hi Daniel, thanks for your thought. Downs actually wrote more about "polymodal distributions of voters," starting around p. 122 of ETOD. Perhaps I will dive deeper into that at some point. In this article (which was already kind of long), I wanted to focus on how Downs's work was misused and misapplied by a couple generations of "rah rah America" political scientists, politicians, Sup Court judges etc. who were looking for a "scientific" theory to prove that the United States' political system was the best. And which was used to trash alternatives, like proportional representation, multi-party democracy, etc. This was during the Cold War, and Downs's ideas got swept up in that hysteria. Much to his own frustration. Similar to Frank Fukuyama's "End of History," which in its entirety is a fascinating work but it got stripped down to a bumper sticker slogan during the triumphalist "USA won the Cold War" hysteria, which Frank also later regretted and tried to correct. For a social critic/theorist and author, it's always gratifying to have your idea(s) find a larger audience, but when those ideas are stripped down to a lesser version and then mis-used by political forces for their own purposes that you may not support, suddenly the author's baby becomes a monster. Funny, how these things turn out sometimes. Thanks Daniel, I always enjoy reading your insights. All the best
Everything else is interesting, but ultimately irrelevant.
As we have been seeing for many election rounds, the entrenched two-party system serves basically to ensure political and social stagnation.
The two political tribes becomes totally absorbed by their quests for power, money and glory. No time or energy to waste on good and fair and representative government. That's for the chumps.
By today's standards, your article might be considered lengthy, but it is well worth the time to read it all. I suspect that the two humps will continue to drift farther apart until a third party creates a central hump. However, as long as single choice plurality voting is prevalent, the central hump will be of minimal amplitude.
I am wondering if our metaphor of the center and moderate gets in the way here. I rather see the center not a quiet separate space but as a dynamic tension. Not between extremes but understanding, challenging, and even integrating those so called extremes which probably also is a bad metaphor. Yes, the three party system that calls for coalition building (e.g. Canada, Britain) could be more helpful and inclusive. As well as a ranking system of voting. However, as an old but still active community organizer, I support building public space in the neighborhoods and workplaces in order to maintain the tensions productively. Our polarization is certainly a matter to be studied by evolutionary and group psychology. But I think the root of it is that many people (including white, rural, conservative people) have been left behind economically (in terms of living standards) as well as politically (in terms of respect). Could we achieve democracy more by dealing with equality--so that we deal with interests over identity?
Rich Republicans and their strategists figured out the two-hump model in the early 1970s, and have spent billions of dollars ever since to drive the country in the two-hump direction by building the think tank and media infrastructure (Cato, AEI, Fox etc.) that they used to build and inflame the right wing. (See then Chamber of Commerce, later Supreme Court justice, Lewis Powell's infamous 1971 memo.) One of the more insidious aspects of the two-hump model is the way in which the media almost always treats this phenomenon as if there was some equivalence at work, that there were "sides" and "both sides" were responsible for the polarization.
Steven, I'm a former political consultant (one of the few who actually studied political science!) and this is the best explanation of Downs and the misunderstanding I've seen. It is a very useful tool for understanding the current state of things. Is there anywhere I can read more on this subject?
Hi Steven, thanks for your comment. Not trying to toot my own horn, but honestly the best discussion I have seen of the work of Anthony Downs, along with his progenitors like Harold Hotelling and Kenneth Arrow, is in my book "Fixing Elections: The Failure of America's Winner Take All Politics." On pages 224 through 234, I make a more extensive, 10 page analysis on how political scientists, media pundits politicians and other "experts" have strip mined Downs's seminal work for their own purposes. And I show how that has impacted our understanding of US politics. It's a sad commentary on the state of political "science" that there aren't more researchers who are on top of this. My book Fixing Elections is somewhat dated in terms of the politics discussed, but the discussion on the work of Anthony Downs (as well as its discussion of the "winner take all" electoral system) is still rock solid. I just looked on Amazon in the hopes that the publicly available excerpt might have the Downs chapter in it, so that you could read it without having to buy a copy. But unfortunately that excerpt is not available there. Thanks for writing, wishing you the best.
Hey Steve, thanks for this clarification of Down's real model. Of course, we don't really have a nice, tidy bactrian-camel-two-equal-hump distribution either, but something more complex, with larger and smaller bumps distributed throughout the Left-Right spectrum. It would be interesting to see an actual graphic representation of how US voters are distributed, based on self-identification and voting patterns.
Hi Daniel, thanks for your thought. Downs actually wrote more about "polymodal distributions of voters," starting around p. 122 of ETOD. Perhaps I will dive deeper into that at some point. In this article (which was already kind of long), I wanted to focus on how Downs's work was misused and misapplied by a couple generations of "rah rah America" political scientists, politicians, Sup Court judges etc. who were looking for a "scientific" theory to prove that the United States' political system was the best. And which was used to trash alternatives, like proportional representation, multi-party democracy, etc. This was during the Cold War, and Downs's ideas got swept up in that hysteria. Much to his own frustration. Similar to Frank Fukuyama's "End of History," which in its entirety is a fascinating work but it got stripped down to a bumper sticker slogan during the triumphalist "USA won the Cold War" hysteria, which Frank also later regretted and tried to correct. For a social critic/theorist and author, it's always gratifying to have your idea(s) find a larger audience, but when those ideas are stripped down to a lesser version and then mis-used by political forces for their own purposes that you may not support, suddenly the author's baby becomes a monster. Funny, how these things turn out sometimes. Thanks Daniel, I always enjoy reading your insights. All the best
The payoff is the very last sentence.
Everything else is interesting, but ultimately irrelevant.
As we have been seeing for many election rounds, the entrenched two-party system serves basically to ensure political and social stagnation.
The two political tribes becomes totally absorbed by their quests for power, money and glory. No time or energy to waste on good and fair and representative government. That's for the chumps.
By today's standards, your article might be considered lengthy, but it is well worth the time to read it all. I suspect that the two humps will continue to drift farther apart until a third party creates a central hump. However, as long as single choice plurality voting is prevalent, the central hump will be of minimal amplitude.
I am wondering if our metaphor of the center and moderate gets in the way here. I rather see the center not a quiet separate space but as a dynamic tension. Not between extremes but understanding, challenging, and even integrating those so called extremes which probably also is a bad metaphor. Yes, the three party system that calls for coalition building (e.g. Canada, Britain) could be more helpful and inclusive. As well as a ranking system of voting. However, as an old but still active community organizer, I support building public space in the neighborhoods and workplaces in order to maintain the tensions productively. Our polarization is certainly a matter to be studied by evolutionary and group psychology. But I think the root of it is that many people (including white, rural, conservative people) have been left behind economically (in terms of living standards) as well as politically (in terms of respect). Could we achieve democracy more by dealing with equality--so that we deal with interests over identity?
Rich Republicans and their strategists figured out the two-hump model in the early 1970s, and have spent billions of dollars ever since to drive the country in the two-hump direction by building the think tank and media infrastructure (Cato, AEI, Fox etc.) that they used to build and inflame the right wing. (See then Chamber of Commerce, later Supreme Court justice, Lewis Powell's infamous 1971 memo.) One of the more insidious aspects of the two-hump model is the way in which the media almost always treats this phenomenon as if there was some equivalence at work, that there were "sides" and "both sides" were responsible for the polarization.
Steven, I'm a former political consultant (one of the few who actually studied political science!) and this is the best explanation of Downs and the misunderstanding I've seen. It is a very useful tool for understanding the current state of things. Is there anywhere I can read more on this subject?
Hi Steven, thanks for your comment. Not trying to toot my own horn, but honestly the best discussion I have seen of the work of Anthony Downs, along with his progenitors like Harold Hotelling and Kenneth Arrow, is in my book "Fixing Elections: The Failure of America's Winner Take All Politics." On pages 224 through 234, I make a more extensive, 10 page analysis on how political scientists, media pundits politicians and other "experts" have strip mined Downs's seminal work for their own purposes. And I show how that has impacted our understanding of US politics. It's a sad commentary on the state of political "science" that there aren't more researchers who are on top of this. My book Fixing Elections is somewhat dated in terms of the politics discussed, but the discussion on the work of Anthony Downs (as well as its discussion of the "winner take all" electoral system) is still rock solid. I just looked on Amazon in the hopes that the publicly available excerpt might have the Downs chapter in it, so that you could read it without having to buy a copy. But unfortunately that excerpt is not available there. Thanks for writing, wishing you the best.