An Economic Theory of DemocracyThis book seeks to elucidate its subject-the governing of democratic state-by making intelligible the party politics of democracies. Downs treats this differently than do other students of politics. His explanations are systematically related to, and deducible from, precisely stated assumptions about the motivations that attend the decisions of voters and parties and the environment in which they act. He is consciously concerned with the economy in explanation, that is, with attempting to account for phenomena in terms of a very limited number of facts and postulates. He is concerned also with the central features of party politics in any democratic state, not with that in the United States or any other single country. |
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Page 17
... WELFARE - FUNCTION PROBLEM Exactly the same problem has long been the center of controversy in the new welfare economics , where Abram Bergson's " social wel- fare function " was advanced as a solution to it.18 Having rejected cardinal ...
... WELFARE - FUNCTION PROBLEM Exactly the same problem has long been the center of controversy in the new welfare economics , where Abram Bergson's " social wel- fare function " was advanced as a solution to it.18 Having rejected cardinal ...
Page 18
... welfare function and dissolved the relationship between individual and social ends which it had tried to establish . Welfare economics was therefore pushed back into the emascu- lated state it had earlier entered by rejecting two ...
... welfare function and dissolved the relationship between individual and social ends which it had tried to establish . Welfare economics was therefore pushed back into the emascu- lated state it had earlier entered by rejecting two ...
Page 288
... welfare ( assuming this process can be defined ) , there is no reason to assume a priori that the men who run the gov- erning apparatus always carry out the policies citizens choose . We must explain why those men discharge this ...
... welfare ( assuming this process can be defined ) , there is no reason to assume a priori that the men who run the gov- erning apparatus always carry out the policies citizens choose . We must explain why those men discharge this ...
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Common terms and phrases
abstain alternatives analysis assume assumption axiom basic benefits cause ceteris paribus citizen X coalition competition conclusion cost of voting decision-making democracy Derived from Chapter discount distribution of voters division of labor economic theory economists effect election period electorate equal ernment exist extremist fact favor free information free market gain goals government action government policy government's groups hence ideologies incumbents indifferent individual influence irrational issue Kenneth Arrow marginal cost marginal equilibrium maximize means ment motives multiparty system oligopoly opposition parties outcome Paretian optimum party differential party's pay-off political information political parties position possible preferences problem Proposition rational citizen rational voter real world reason reëlected return from voting scale selection principles social society strategy tion two-party system uncertainty utility functions utility income V. O. Key views vote-selling voting decision welfare Welfare Economics well-informed zero