The Downsian Model, The Punish And Reward Theory, And The Investment Theory

Since the moment that the American election system was put into place, people have tried to predict the outcome of the elections. From gamblers to conspiracy theorists, nobody can resist the anticipation of knowing who the next President will be. As it was to be expected, political scientists are no exception, and have tried to find theories to predict the outcome of the ballots for decades. Three of the most relevant theories invented are the Downsian Model, the Punish and Reward Theory, and the Investment Theory. The most plausible of the three due to its heavy tested empirical evidence is the Investment Theory. This paper will discuss the upcoming elections under the light of the Investment Theory, thus proving that American elections are …show more content…
Clinton will win the Presidency, not because she has the most voters, but because she has the biggest bloc of major investors. Since “Blocs of major investors define the core of political parties, and are responsible for most of the signals the party sends to the electorate.” (Ferguson), the general electorate is only given a filtered number of positions from which to vote for. This means that for the regular electorate democracy is but an illusion, as regular voters “possess limited and – especially in the United States- exiguous information and interest in politics.” and will only vote based on the signals the parties send to the electorate. (Ferguson) The regular electorate will think they are making a choice between positions, while in in reality the decision has already been made for them by major investors; they can only choose between the crumbs. While the Downsian Model and the Punish and Reward Theory state that the general electorate will vote for the candidate that better represents their views and positions, it does not mean that democracy exists because people vote. Voting for something that has already been filtered down for you to choose is no democracy at all. This also means that major investors’ common interests will never be contested, which can explain why today’s candidates aren’t basing their campaigns subjects that put those interests at risk, like unions or worker wages. Moreover, in the majority of cases, the major investors are deciding the positions for which candidates are basing their campaigns on, the general electorate is only entitled to a pseudo-democracy; only the major investors are exercising democracy, not the general voters. Conversely, only in some cases does democracy as Anthony Downs and the Punish and Reward Theory describe occur; although not because of the reasons they state. Only during cases known as “realignments” do the general electorate exercise somewhat more