Advertisement

Foot voting versus ballot box voting: why voting with your feet is crucial to political freedom

  • Ilya SominEmail author
Symposium
First Online:
  • 18 Downloads

Abstract

Ballot box voting is the main mechanism of political choice in modern liberal democracies. It is also often thought of as the essence of political freedom. Traditional voting has significant virtues. But as a mechanism for exercising political freedom, ballot box voting has serious flaws. The average citizen has almost no chance of affecting the outcome of an electoral process. In part as a result, he or she also has strong incentives to make ill-informed and illogical decisions. “Voting with your feet” is a superior option on both fronts. It is thereby often a superior mechanism of political freedom.

Keywords

Democracy Political freedom Political participation Voting Voting with your feet 
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

References

  1. Achen, C., and L. Bartels. 2016. Democracy for Realists: Why Elections do Not Produce Responsive Government. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  2. Ackerman, B., and J. Fishkin. 2004. Deliberation Day. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
  3. AMA Code of Medical Ethics. 2012. Opinion 8.08. http://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/2012/07/coet1-1207.html. Accessed 22 Nov 2018.
  4. Bartels, Larry M. 2010. Unequal Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
  5. Brennan, J. 2016. Against Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  6. Caplan, B. 2007. The Myth of the Rational Voter. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
  7. Clemens, M. 2011. Economics and Emigration: Trillion Dollar Bills Left on the Sidewalk? Journal of Economic Perspectives 25: 83–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  8. Clemens, M., and L. Pritchett. 2008. Income Per Natural: Measuring Development for People Rather than Places. Population and Development Review 34: 395–434.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. Ellickson, R. 2012. Legal Sources of Residential Lock-Ins: Why French Households Move Half as Often as U.S. Households. University of Illinois Law Review 373–404: esp. 395–97.Google Scholar
  10. Freedom House. 2016. Freedom in the World 2016. https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2016. Accessed 22 Nov 2018.
  11. Fishkin, J. 1979. Tyranny and Legitimacy: A Critique of Political Theories. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.Google Scholar
  12. Frey, B. 2001. A Utopia? Government Without Territorial Monopoly. Independent Review 6: 99–112.Google Scholar
  13. Frey, B. 2008. Happiness: A Revolution in Economics, 189–197. Cambridge: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  14. Gerken, H. 2005. Second Order Diversity. Harvard Law Review 118: 1099–1196.Google Scholar
  15. Glaeser, E. 2017. Reforming Land Use Regulations. Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/research/reforming-land-use-regulations/amp/. Accessed 22 Nov 2018.
  16. Grosssman, D., P. Peterson, and J. Stimson. 2006. Mandate Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
  17. Halperin, M., J. Siegle, and M. Weinstein. 2010. The Democracy Advantage, Rev ed. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
  18. Hirschman, A. 1970. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
  19. Hobbes, T. 1991. Leviathan. In ed. R. Tuck. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
  20. Huemer, M. 2010. Is There a Right to Immigrate? Social Theory and Practice 36: 429–461.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  21. Huemer, M. 2013. The Problem of Political Authority. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  22. Landemore, H. 2013. Deliberation, Cognitive Diversity, and Inclusiveness: An argument for the Random Selection of Representatives. Synthese 190: 1209–1231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  23. Leib, E. 2004. Deliberative Democracy in America: A Proposal for a Popular Branch of Government. University Park: Penn State Press.Google Scholar
  24. Locke, J. 1963. Second Treatise on Government. In ed. P. Laslett. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
  25. Lopez-Guerra, C. 2010. The Enfranchisement Lottery. Philosophy, Politics, and Economics 10: 211–233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  26. Lopez-Guerra, C. 2014. Democracy and Disenfranchisement: The Morality of Electoral Exclusions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  27. Mutz, D. 2006. Hearing the Other Side. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  28. Nelson, R. 2005. Private Neighborhoods and the Transformation of Local Government. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.Google Scholar
  29. Nozick, R. 1974. Anarchy, the State and Utopia. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
  30. O’Hara, E., and L. Ribstein. 2009. The Law Market. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
  31. Oser, J., L. Leightley, and K. Winneg. 2014. Participation, Online and Otherwise: What’s the Difference for Policy Preferences? Social Science Quarterly 95: 259–277.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  32. Pettit, P. 1996. Freedom as Antipower. Ethics 106: 576–604.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  33. Pettit, P. 1997. Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
  34. Pettit, P. 2012. On the People’s Terms: A Republican Theory of Democracy and Government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  35. Plamenatz, J. 1968. Consent, Freedom, and Political Obligation, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
  36. Plato, Crito. 1969. In The Collected Dialogues of Plato, eds. Hamilton E., and Cairns, H, 27.Google Scholar
  37. Rhode, P., and K. Strumpf. 2003. Assessing the Importance of Tiebout Sorting: Local Heterogeneity from 1885 to 1990. American Economic Review 93: 1648–1677, 1649.Google Scholar
  38. Schleicher, D. 2017. Stuck! The Law and Economics of Residential Stability. Yale Law Journal 127: 78–154.Google Scholar
  39. Sen, A. 1999. Development as Freedom. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
  40. Shenkman, R. 2008. Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
  41. Simmons, A.J. 1979. Moral Principles and Political Obligation, 136–139. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
  42. Somin, I. 2010. Deliberative Democracy and Political Ignorance. Critical Review 22: 253–279.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  43. Somin, I. 2014a. In ‘Foot Voting, Federalism, and Political Freedom’, Nomos: Federalism and Subsidiarity, ed. J. Fleming and J. Levy. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
  44. Somin, I. 2014b. Jury Ignorance and Political Ignorance. William and Mary Law Review 55: 1167–1193.Google Scholar
  45. Somin, I. 2015. Rational Ignorance. In Routledge International Handbook of Ignorance Studies, ed. M. Gross and L. McGoey. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
  46. Somin, I. 2016. Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter, Chapter 5, 2nd ed. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
  47. Somin, I. 2017. Foot Voting, Decentralization, and Development. Minnesota Law Review 102: 1649.Google Scholar
  48. Somin, I. 2018. Foot Voting and the Future of Liberty. In The Future of Classical Liberalism, ed. T. Henderson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
  49. Somin, I. forthcoming. Free to Move: Foot Voting and Political Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
  50. Steinberger, P. 2004. The Idea of the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
  51. Stringham, E. 2015. Private Governance: Creating Order in Economic and Social Life, 131. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  52. Tai-Hsieh, C., and E. Moretti. 2015. Housing Constraints and Spatial Misallocation. NBER Working Paper No. 21154. http://www.nber.org/papers/w21154. Accessed 22 Nov 2018.
  53. Taylor, R. 2017. Exit Left: Markets and Mobility in Republican Thought. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  54. Van Parijs, P. 1995. Real Freedom for All. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
  55. Wellman, C. 2016. Freedom of Movement and the Right to Enter and Exit. In Migration in Political Theory: The Ethics of Movement and Membership, ed. S. Fine and L. Ypi. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© European Consortium for Political Research 2019

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.George Mason UniversityArlingtonUSA

Personalised recommendations

Cite article

Buy options