An Economic Theory of DemocracyThis book seeks to elucidate its subject-the governing of democratic state-by making intelligible the party politics of democracies. Downs treats this differently than do other students of politics. His explanations are systematically related to, and deducible from, precisely stated assumptions about the motivations that attend the decisions of voters and parties and the environment in which they act. He is consciously concerned with the economy in explanation, that is, with attempting to account for phenomena in terms of a very limited number of facts and postulates. He is concerned also with the central features of party politics in any democratic state, not with that in the United States or any other single country. |
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... tion , we incorporate it into our model simply as a factual parameter , not a normative one . Therefore the relationship we construct be- tween individual and government ends is one that we believe will exist under certain conditions ...
... tion of a better society . Such continual readjustment of ideologies within each party means that no party can be perfectly responsible because its institutional structure is too dynamic . Its leadership alters ; consequently its pol ...
... tion follows a rule . Therefore all information is by nature biased because it is a selection of data from the vast amount extant , others of which could have been selected.1 As Karl Mannheim said : History as history is unintelligible ...