Why Bother With Elections?

by Adam Przeworski

With the collapse of traditional parties around the world and with many pundits predicting a "crisis of democracy", the value of elections as a method for selecting by whom and how we are governed is being questioned. What are the virtues and weaknesses of elections? Are there limitations to what they can realistically achieve? 

In this deeply informed book world-renowned democratic theorist Adam Przeworski offers a warts-and-all analysis of elections and the ways in which they affect our lives. Elections, he argues, are inherently imperfect but they remain the least bad way of choosing our rulers. According to Przeworski, the greatest value of elections, by itself sufficient to cherish them, is that they process whatever conflicts may arise in society in a way that maintains relative liberty and peace. Whether they succeed in doing so in today's turbulent political climate remains to be seen.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Economics

210 pages, Paperback

First published January 16, 2018

About the author

Adam Przeworski is the Carroll and Milton Professor of Politics and (by courtesy) Economics at New York University. Previously he taught at the University of Chicago, where he was the Martin A. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor, and held visiting appointments in India, Chile, France, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1991, he is the recipient of the 1985 Socialist Review Book Award, the 1998 Gregory M. Luebbert Article Award, the 2001 Woodrow Wilson Prize, the 2010 Lawrence Longley Award, the 2010 Johan Skytte Prize, the 2018 Sakip Sabanci Award, and the 2018 Juan Linz Prize.. He recently published Why Bother with Elections? (London: Polity Press 2018).

Reviews

[Manuel Romero · Rating 2 out of 5]

Apart from some marginal interesting reflections and graphs, this book is an uncritical and ideological defense of elections as the political mechanism of capitalism.

[Sean Finn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book on the nature of democracy and some fallacies of its perceived intent.

[Luciano · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably there are not many people in the world that have taught about democracy and elections harder and more extensively than Adam Przeworski. This short book condenses very competently decades of political science and political economy research, in an attempt to provide a clear and robust answer to the provocative question poised in the title. As a book for the general reader, it could be more colorful; still, definitely worth reading.

[Liz Norell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book I assigned to college sophomore-level students in a world politics class, and it was just the right level for those readers. Przeworski offers a number of fascinating claims and insights that have provoked interesting and productive discussion. I thoroughly enjoyed it, as did my students, and I appreciated its conciseness and clarity. And only one mathy footnote!

[L7od · Rating 3 out of 5]

Livro bem escrito, didático e que toca em pontos importantes sobre o ritual democrático da eleição. Apesar de ser escrito para um público leigo, ele é bastante profundo em relação aos problemas e soluções trazidos por este método de seleção dos governantes e para os não-leigos mostra que é possível fazer a escrita científica ser acessível sem perder profundidade. Vale a pena ler.

[Pechague · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's important for someone to every now and then re write the fundamentals. The book is not terribly original, but it accomplishes what it intends to do; explain the fundamentals of elections. Super important to understand contemporary affairs.

[Luis Henrique · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quality as usual.

“Elections are a method by which individuals and groups, “political forces,” struggle in particular societies to advance their often conflicting interests and values. They are not a mechanism which gifts us whatever we want – good government, rationality, justice, development, equality, or what not – but just a terrain on which people with heterogeneous preferences process their conflicts according to some rules.”

“Voting is an imposition of a will over a will. When a decision is reached by voting, some people must submit to an opinion different from theirs or to a decision contrary to their interest. Voting generates winners and losers, and it authorizes the winners to impose their will, even if within constraints, on the losers.”

“Voting constitutes ‘flexing muscles’: a reading of chances in the eventual war.”

“Democratic elections peacefully process conflicts only when political parties are successful in structuring conflicts and channeling political actions into elections.”

“the crucial democratic institutions are those that prevent incumbents from abusing their power to tilt results of elections. They include administration of and oversight over elections by bodies indepenent of the executive, whether judicial or autonomous, barriers to the access of money to politics, strong enforcement of political rights: all the conditions enumerated by Dahl (1971) as necessary for elections to be truly free.”

“In the end, it matters less who has won and who will win elections, but whether elections can still peacefully process conflicts in intensely divided societies.”