Hiring and firing public officials : rethinking the purpose of elections / Justin Buchler.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Buchler, Justin.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Elections--United States.

Elections.

Competition.

United States.

Voting--United States.

Voting.

Competition--Political aspects--United States.

Physical Description:

ix, 260 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, [2011]

Summary:

Conventional theories of elections hold that an election is analogous to a consumer product market. According to the market paradigm, voters are consumers, candidates are competing firms, and an election is a market in which voters exchange votes for policy by voting for the candidates whose policies they prefer. According to this logic, a healthy democracy requires frequent competitive elections. The market analogy underlies decades of electoral theory, but in Hiring and Firing Public Officials, Justin Buchler contends that it does not capture the real nature of elections. In fact, our widespread dissatisfaction with the current state of electoral politics derives from a fundamental misunderstanding of what elections arc and what purpose they serve. As Justin Buchler shows, an election is a mechanism by which voters hire and fire public officials. It is not a consumer product market-it is a single employment decision. Thus, the health of democracy depends not on regular competitive elections, but on posing a credible threat to fire public officials who do not perform their jobs well. However, the purpose of that threat is to force public officials to act as faithful public servants so that they do not have to be fired. Thus, competitive elections, by most definitions, arc indicative of a failure of the democratic system. Book jacket.

Contents:

Elections and the politics of threats

What is electoral competition?

Elections as employment mechanisms

Market competition

Competitive behavior and competitive elections

Competitive elections in the market and employment models

Corruption and competition

Policy implications of the market and employment models.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780199759965

0199759960

9780199759972

0199759979

OCLC:

649827305