What motivates the voter

The general election has concluded, and the unseemly polemics that manifested in the electioneering across political parties have ended. While we await the people’s mandate, it gives us pause to reflect on democracy and the common good. There has been much contentious debate about EVM voting, voting percentages and what they mean, and the state of India’s democracy. 

Assume that democracy is a means of expressing individual interests or preferences. Some people will vote for what they really want. Others set aside their personal preferences and vote based on moral principles. Yet others rely on inducement or coercion. We never know what motivates a voter. In fact, many voters themselves may not know either. What are the implications of this? If people do not always vote based on their choices, we cannot portray the voting process as one that automatically discloses the views of the majority. So, what does the vote indicate? If people vote for varied reasons—some out of desire, others out of concern for the greater good—it means only that the majority of people make one choice over another. We cannot confidently state that the majority of individuals believe the winning option is in their best interests or that the decision is
for the greater good. In short, voting based on mixed motivations seems to be the norm.

The challenge of mixed-motive voting forces us to ask what kind of incentive voters should have. The question of whether we can assure that voters are motivated in practice is more difficult. But first, consider the theoretical question: Is the first past the post a good measure of the vox populi? If we do not accept mixed-motivation voting, it appears that we must choose between two models: one in which people vote based on their preferences and another in which voters vote based on their estimations or judgements of the common good. The difficulty with the former, as we have discovered in the past, is that preference-based polling can be a significantly more sensitive method of gathering the essential information. But perhaps the second idea - that all people should vote according to their ideas of the common good - can be used in a defence of India’s democracy. 

If we suppose that individuals vote based on their perceptions of the common good, we need a new case for democracy. The crux of the matter is really that without a vote, rulers would be unable to determine who the people wanted. The first past the post is the best method we have. However, if people vote in accordance with their notions about the common good, voting will not reveal this information. It will only tell us what the majority believes is best for the common good, not what the majority prefers. Yet, this offers a different defence of democracy. If we enable people to vote based on their perceptions of the common good and follow the majority decision, we have a decent probability of being correct. 

The case for democracy is that it currently appears to be an excellent method of determining the common good. The French philosopher and political thinker the Marquis de Condorcet, developed an intriguing mathematical argument that appears to demonstrate the benefits of allowing people to vote on the common good. Condorcet stated that if we believe that people have a better than even probability of having the right answer on average, then letting majority decision is ideal to achieve the right result. If a large number of people vote, then the chances of getting the right result tend towards certainty, which is the case with India.

But it is vital to appreciate that it only works on two conditions: First, the average individual must have a better than even chance of being right and it is difficult to be optimistic about this when voting takes place on a large scale. Second, each individual must be motivated to vote based on his or her vision of the common good, rather than personal or parochial interests. If the second assumption fails, we are back to the uncertainty of mixed-motivation voting. If the first assumption fails, things get significantly worse. If the people are, on average, more likely to be wrong than right, majority vote is practically certain to produce the incorrect result. 

Many people would argue that we should support democracy even if it turned out that democratic systems were less effective than others in achieving the common good. Instead of asking whether democracy has an instrumental justification: is it a means to an end that we value; we should ask: is there anything inherently good about democracy? Is it not the case that democracy is intrinsically useful, even if it does not always produce acceptable results? This raises the argument that democracy should not be judged solely on how successfully it delivers the common good, even though that is important too. The serious and significant issue to emphasise here is that there may be values involved in political decision-making that differ from the value of obtaining certain goals. We must recognise that ideals, ideology, integrity, and ethics have long abandoned India’s polity. We appear to be unable to distinguish between what is true and what is false; and what is right from what is wrong. 

Yet, in this rather dismal politics that we see, it is imperative that we recognise that democracy is valuable not simply because democracies make better decisions than other forms of governments, but because democratic processes have inherent value. Democracy reflects two of our most important values: freedom and equality. Freedom is defined as providing people a say in political decisions. Equality is defined as providing all people access to freedom. Whatever the outcome on June 4, the new government would do well to recognise that every state is a community with a view to the common good and that we must preserve freedom and equality as immutable values.

(The writer is Director, School of Social Sciences, M S Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences)