What do you think?
Rate this book
An Economic Theory of Democracy
This 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 deductible 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 State or any other single country.
I. BASIC STRUCTURE OF THE MODEL.
1. Introduction.
2. Party Motivation and the Function of Government in Society.
3. The Basic Logic of Voting.
4. The Basic Logic of Government Decision-Making.
II. THE GENERAL EFFECTS OF UNCERTAINTY.
5. The Meaning of Uncertainty.
6. How Uncertainty Affects Government Decision-Making.
7. The Development of Political Ideologies as Means of Getting Votes.
8. The Statics and Dynamics of Party Ideologies
9. Problems of Rationality Under Coalition Governments.
10. Government Vote-Maximizing and Individual marginal Equilibrium.
III. SPECIFIC EFFECTS OF INFORMATION COSTS.
11. The Process of Becoming Informed.
12. How Rational Citizens Reduce Information Costs.
13. The Returns From Information and Their Diminution.
14. The Causes and Effects of Rational Abstention.
IV. DERIVATIVE IMPLICATIONS AND HYPOTHESIS.
15. A Comment on Economic Theories of Government Behavior.
16. Testable Prepositions Derived from the Theory.
I. BASIC STRUCTURE OF THE MODEL.
1. Introduction.
2. Party Motivation and the Function of Government in Society.
3. The Basic Logic of Voting.
4. The Basic Logic of Government Decision-Making.
II. THE GENERAL EFFECTS OF UNCERTAINTY.
5. The Meaning of Uncertainty.
6. How Uncertainty Affects Government Decision-Making.
7. The Development of Political Ideologies as Means of Getting Votes.
8. The Statics and Dynamics of Party Ideologies
9. Problems of Rationality Under Coalition Governments.
10. Government Vote-Maximizing and Individual marginal Equilibrium.
III. SPECIFIC EFFECTS OF INFORMATION COSTS.
11. The Process of Becoming Informed.
12. How Rational Citizens Reduce Information Costs.
13. The Returns From Information and Their Diminution.
14. The Causes and Effects of Rational Abstention.
IV. DERIVATIVE IMPLICATIONS AND HYPOTHESIS.
15. A Comment on Economic Theories of Government Behavior.
16. Testable Prepositions Derived from the Theory.
310 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1957
22 people are currently reading
869 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
January 30, 2014
This is a book that the large majority of students seeking an advanced degree in politics will encounter at some point or another. Even if you never read the actual text, you will no doubt come across many mentions of "Downsian logic" or something similar. Therefore, regardless of the actual content of the book, it's one that is important to be familiar with just because it is a primary text that is referenced all the time, and considered a foundational text for rational choice theory, probably the most prevalent political science framework in modern scholarship.
On the other hand, Downs wrote this book in the 1950s, and a lot has changed since then. I will say this in favor of it: after I read the first chapter, I thought I was going to find the entire thing to be absurd abstract exercise, but I was wrong about that. It ends up being much more compelling than I thought it would be at first. Downs' premises his book on the idea that actors in a democracy make choices that beneficial to themselves in a rational (predictable) manner, and then elaborates on how these choices might be made when we begin to think about the role of uncertainty in decision-making and how parties might use various strategies to maximize their appeal to voters. The rational choice theory that has emerged since the publication of an Economic Theory of Democracy has been quite successful in a variety of areas in predicting political behavior, a rare victory the notriously soft world of social sciences, though not universally successful and not without critics.
The major area where this book has a blind spot is in what has become known as bio-politics, a field examining some less-than-rational bases of decision-making. The primacy of rational decision-making is facing some serious challenges from this type of research, may usher in a different paradigm for understanding some of the questions Downs' raises.
On the other hand, Downs wrote this book in the 1950s, and a lot has changed since then. I will say this in favor of it: after I read the first chapter, I thought I was going to find the entire thing to be absurd abstract exercise, but I was wrong about that. It ends up being much more compelling than I thought it would be at first. Downs' premises his book on the idea that actors in a democracy make choices that beneficial to themselves in a rational (predictable) manner, and then elaborates on how these choices might be made when we begin to think about the role of uncertainty in decision-making and how parties might use various strategies to maximize their appeal to voters. The rational choice theory that has emerged since the publication of an Economic Theory of Democracy has been quite successful in a variety of areas in predicting political behavior, a rare victory the notriously soft world of social sciences, though not universally successful and not without critics.
The major area where this book has a blind spot is in what has become known as bio-politics, a field examining some less-than-rational bases of decision-making. The primacy of rational decision-making is facing some serious challenges from this type of research, may usher in a different paradigm for understanding some of the questions Downs' raises.
August 10, 2012
By Anthony Downs, not Rudolph Steiner.
March 10, 2025
update: i'm changing my review from four to five stars because it's been days and i'm still thinking about this book. downs did an exceptional job at demonstrating how higher income groups have more political power, rather than just simply stating it. he explains how political parties aim to maximize votes, arrow's impossibility theorem, the self-interest axiom, and so much more. the ideological framework explored and detailed in this book is incredibly cohesive and well thought out, and remains exceptionally relevant to politics/government today.
original review: interesting read! although it was written in 1957, a lot of what downs discusses is still related to politics today. a bit dense at times but overall an interesting crossover between politics and economics.
original review: interesting read! although it was written in 1957, a lot of what downs discusses is still related to politics today. a bit dense at times but overall an interesting crossover between politics and economics.
January 17, 2024
Mathematical but not scientific. Some interesting models, like Arrow's coalition problem. Ultimately, not enough engagement with the empirical world or biology, but still quite logical and clear compared to meaningless garbage like 17th-19th century "political economy", including Locke, Hobbes, Smith, and Marx.
October 7, 2020
This is a wonderful book, full of important ideas. First, Downs gives us a list of features that must be fulfilled to get a real democracy. One point there concerns me, which I think makes no democracy in this world a real democracy, but merely a flawed democracy. Second, Downs creates a model in which everyone is rational, and votes rationally, which is a major limitation of this book. I find it rare that people think all the time about the differentials between the incumbent party and the opposition party in terms of utility points. Mostly, people are rarely calculating and aggregating in this manner, which makes the model in this book a Weberian ideal type.
August 17, 2025
I read Anthony Downs’ An Economic Theory of Democracy in 2017, at a time when politics already felt less like deliberation and more like a market performance.
The timing was uncanny. Here was a book written in 1957, and yet it felt as though it had been sketched in anticipation of the political climate I was watching unfold in real time—where campaigns were products, parties were firms, and voters were the ultimate consumers.
Downs’ central move is deceptively simple: treat democracy as an economic system. Voters act like rational individuals, maximising utility; politicians act like entrepreneurs, maximising votes. Policies, in this frame, are not moral imperatives or philosophical visions, but market offerings crafted to capture the broadest possible audience.
What struck me most, reading in 2017, was how uncannily the model seemed to describe the elections I had been observing. Candidates no longer talked about conviction or transformation; they adjusted their rhetoric like businesses tweaking their branding, always angling toward that elusive “median voter.”
The famous median voter theorem hit me with particular force. Downs’ claim that parties converge toward the center to secure the largest voting bloc felt like a crystal-clear diagnosis of why so many modern political debates seemed blandly repetitive. Instead of stark ideological clashes, I kept seeing cautious moderation, calculated half-promises, and a gradual drift to whatever position was safest for electoral arithmetic.
Reading Downs, I felt both illuminated and disturbed: illuminated because the logic was so transparent once spelt out, disturbed because it reduced politics to a game of strategic positioning.
But even in 2017, I could sense the model’s limits. Rational choice theory assumes voters act logically, with full information, pursuing their self-interest like economic agents. The reality all around me contradicted that assumption. People voted against their own material interests, driven by identity, anger, loyalty, or fear. Social media amplified tribalism in ways Downs could not have foreseen.
The polarisation I was witnessing seemed to shred his neat prediction of convergence around the centre. If anything, parties were splitting into echo chambers, playing not to the median voter but to their most mobilised bases.
Still, the book’s power lay not in perfect prediction but in its stark reframing. Downs stripped away sentiment and forced me to think of democracy without its idealistic varnish. If politicians are essentially vote-maximisers, then democracy is less about wisdom and more about efficiency in capturing public favour. That thought unsettled me in 2017, and it unsettles me still.
Looking back from today, I realise how much Downs’ framework continues to haunt my view of politics. I cannot watch an election without hearing the background hum of strategic calculation. Every shift in rhetoric, every pivot toward or away from an issue, reads like a firm adjusting its product line.
The brilliance of the book is that once you see democracy through this lens, you cannot unsee it.
An Economic Theory of Democracy is not the whole story. But in 2017 it gave me a sharpened, almost merciless clarity: that democracy, for all its ideals, often runs on the cold logic of markets.
The timing was uncanny. Here was a book written in 1957, and yet it felt as though it had been sketched in anticipation of the political climate I was watching unfold in real time—where campaigns were products, parties were firms, and voters were the ultimate consumers.
Downs’ central move is deceptively simple: treat democracy as an economic system. Voters act like rational individuals, maximising utility; politicians act like entrepreneurs, maximising votes. Policies, in this frame, are not moral imperatives or philosophical visions, but market offerings crafted to capture the broadest possible audience.
What struck me most, reading in 2017, was how uncannily the model seemed to describe the elections I had been observing. Candidates no longer talked about conviction or transformation; they adjusted their rhetoric like businesses tweaking their branding, always angling toward that elusive “median voter.”
The famous median voter theorem hit me with particular force. Downs’ claim that parties converge toward the center to secure the largest voting bloc felt like a crystal-clear diagnosis of why so many modern political debates seemed blandly repetitive. Instead of stark ideological clashes, I kept seeing cautious moderation, calculated half-promises, and a gradual drift to whatever position was safest for electoral arithmetic.
Reading Downs, I felt both illuminated and disturbed: illuminated because the logic was so transparent once spelt out, disturbed because it reduced politics to a game of strategic positioning.
But even in 2017, I could sense the model’s limits. Rational choice theory assumes voters act logically, with full information, pursuing their self-interest like economic agents. The reality all around me contradicted that assumption. People voted against their own material interests, driven by identity, anger, loyalty, or fear. Social media amplified tribalism in ways Downs could not have foreseen.
The polarisation I was witnessing seemed to shred his neat prediction of convergence around the centre. If anything, parties were splitting into echo chambers, playing not to the median voter but to their most mobilised bases.
Still, the book’s power lay not in perfect prediction but in its stark reframing. Downs stripped away sentiment and forced me to think of democracy without its idealistic varnish. If politicians are essentially vote-maximisers, then democracy is less about wisdom and more about efficiency in capturing public favour. That thought unsettled me in 2017, and it unsettles me still.
Looking back from today, I realise how much Downs’ framework continues to haunt my view of politics. I cannot watch an election without hearing the background hum of strategic calculation. Every shift in rhetoric, every pivot toward or away from an issue, reads like a firm adjusting its product line.
The brilliance of the book is that once you see democracy through this lens, you cannot unsee it.
An Economic Theory of Democracy is not the whole story. But in 2017 it gave me a sharpened, almost merciless clarity: that democracy, for all its ideals, often runs on the cold logic of markets.
April 24, 2019
Tiene consideraciones interesantes para tomar en cuenta en los análisis de la democracia partidista, tanto en sistema bipartidista como sistemas multipartidistas y la acción de los políticos y votantes según sus incentivos.
Tengo ciertas dudas sobre las hipótesis que tiene sobre la naturaleza del gobierno, aunque creo que los modelos propuestos no necesiten de estas hipótesis para desarrollarse, también tengo una mejor comprensión sobre la posición de Caplan con respecto a la irracionalidad de los votantes, Downs pensaba que eran aleatorias, Caplan demuestra que son sistemáticas.
Tengo ciertas dudas sobre las hipótesis que tiene sobre la naturaleza del gobierno, aunque creo que los modelos propuestos no necesiten de estas hipótesis para desarrollarse, también tengo una mejor comprensión sobre la posición de Caplan con respecto a la irracionalidad de los votantes, Downs pensaba que eran aleatorias, Caplan demuestra que son sistemáticas.
January 10, 2020
A must-read for all political scientists and political philosophers.
October 6, 2024
read @Brett’s review.
dnf
April 27, 2025Leí 68/310paginas
May 7, 2025
Very informative
January 14, 2010
read as text for a grad seminar. "the most cited work in political science," or so said Dr. Wielhouwer. a good thing to have read, but not light weekend reading.
doesn't stand alone too well; read this and some other things - like Mayhew's 'Congress: The Electoral Connection' or any other rational choice work.
doesn't stand alone too well; read this and some other things - like Mayhew's 'Congress: The Electoral Connection' or any other rational choice work.
August 2, 2009
Insightful economic analysis of democratic political systems, the intersection of economics and political science.
November 7, 2010
(actually, I only skimmed it)
August 28, 2007
Rational choice theory is good.
December 18, 2012
it's by Antony Downs
December 28, 2015
Read this if you know what's good for you.
Read
November 23, 2016i tnihk reas can make averithing is god
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews