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Författare

• Kaisa Herne

Abstract

The well-known paradox of voting, first formulated by Downs (1957), states that instrumental rationality cannot predict a high turnout among large electorates. More recently there have been many attempts to reformulate rational behavior so as to account for voting. The proposed theories are reviewed in the paper and it is shown that none of them succeeds in explaining voting as instrumentally rational action. Empirical evidence on voter turnout is also reviewed and it is argued that irrefutable evidence on behalf of instrumental voting cannot be found. However, the conflict between instrumental rationality andvoting in large electorates is not considered as an implication of a general failure of rational choice models in politics.