Altruism and Self-Interest in Democracies Individual Participation in Government

Individuals have little incentive to vote, acquire political information or contribute campaign funds, because their vote has very little chance of affecting the outcome of an election. Jankowski offers an explanation and evidence for political participation based on the assumption that most individuals are weakly altruistic. Other proposed explanations of political participation (civic duty and expressive behavior) are not supported by the evidence, or fail to explain the many different forms of political participation, such as the acquisition of political information. Evidence is presented that liberals and conservatives are equally altruistic. Therefore, an explanation of why liberals and conservatives differ in their support of various government programs to help the needy is presented. Jankowski's analysis examines both the electoral and post-electoral phases of representative democracy.

Richard Jankowski is Professor of Political Science at the SUNY at Fredonia, USA. He has also taught at the University of Iowa, USA and University of Arizona, USA. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, USA. His areas of specialization are political behavior; political economy; comparative political institutions; statistics; and game theory. He has published widely in political science, sociology and economic journals. His current research interests are: foundations of rational choice theory, institutional economics (legislatures, parties and interest groups), the political economy of growth, central bank intervention in exchange-rate markets, and democratization.

1. Introduction
2. Why Participate in Politics?: Beyond Self-Interest
3. Why Vote?: The Evidence
4. Why Become Politically Informed?
5. The Post-Election Phase: Public Interest Groups
6. A Gene for Altruism?
7. Altruism and Redistributive Government Policies
8. Altruistic Conservatives: Varieties of Conservatism
9. An Epistemic Defense of Democracy: Democracies Do it Better?
10. Representative Democracy: Electoral and Post-Electoral Phases