Altruism and Self-Interest in Democracies: Individual Participation in Government

209 Pages·2015·1.06 MB·English

by  R. Jankowski

Altruism and Self-Interest in Democracies
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Altruism and Self-Interest in

Democracies
Individual Participation in Government
Richard Jankowski
altruism and self-interest in democracies
Copyright © Richard Jankowski, 2015.
All rights reserved.
First published in 2015 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN: 978–1–137–40318–6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jankowski, Richard, 1946–
Altruism and self-interest in democracies : individual participation in
government / Richard Jankowski.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–1–137–40318–6 (hardback)
1. Political participation—Philosophy. 2. Voting research. 3. Altruism—
Political aspects. 4. Democracy. I. Title.
JF799.J36 2015
323.042—dc23 2015001012
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: July 2015
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To all my teachers, without whom this work would not be possible,
and to Diane Decker who is always editing my grammar
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C O N T E N T S

List of Figures and Tables ix
Introduction 1
One Why Participate in Politics? Beyond Self-Interest 9
Two Why Vote? The Evidence 25
Three Why Become Politically Informed? 47
Four The Postelection Phase: Public Interest Groups 65
Five A Gene for Altruism? 95
Six Altruism and Redistributive Government Policies 109
Seven Altruistic Conservatives: Varieties of Conservatism 121
Eight An Epistemic Defense of Democracy: Democracies
Do It Better? 137
Nine Representative Democracy: Electoral and Postelectoral 153
Notes 165
Bibliography 173
Index 187
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FI GuR E S A N D T A BlE S

Figures
2.1 Mixed-strategy voting probability 43
5.1 Net benefits from public good provision 100
Tables
2.1 Democratic versus Republican support for altruism 28
2.2 logistic regression analyzing role of altruism in turnout 31
3.1 Regression analyzing role of altruism in acquisition of
political information 55
4.1 Group membership and altruism 82
4.2 Group membership, various work types, and altruism 84
4.3 Contributing money and other forms of
political participation 85
4.4 Altruism and political ideology 86
5.1 Altruistic and nonaltruistic groups 101
6.1 Fractionalization hypothesis 115
6.2 National ID hypothesis 117
6.3 Pride and income 117