Politics as a Peculiar Business: Reason, Sentiment, and Electoral Competition

Abstract

This is a preliminary draft of the fourth of what will be eight chapters in a book titled Politics as a Peculiar Business: Public Choice in a System of Entangled Political Economy. This chapter starts by explaining that a universal feature of competition is its selection for excellence among competitors. This is a purely formal attribute of competition. Just what qualities are actually selected through competition depends on the context of competition, which is myriad in number. One can, for instance, be an excellent swimmer without being a terrific diver. Most of this chapter explains how the triadic character of democratic processes selects for different qualities than the dyadic character of market processes.

Keywords: logical vs. non-logical action; instrumental vs. expressive voting; selection through competition; reason and sentimentality

JEL Classification: D20, D70, H10, L30