Local Democracy Notepad

Sometimes, a book review provokes a response that is worth reading even if you can’t afford the time / cash to read the book itself. Here’s an example from Charlie Becket’s verygood Polis blog reviewing ‘The Myth of Digital Democracy’ by Matthew Hindman:

“…the US obsession with the political blogosphere distracted people from the much richer opportunities online. US pol blogs thrives because the American mainstream political media is so boring and so editorially narrow, be it Fox News or the New York Times. Here in the UK we have much more vibrant newspaper-based political journalism as well as the vast edifice of the BBC and other public service broadcasters.

So it is not so surprising that our political blogosphere is less high profile than in America. The next UK election will NOT be an Internet election and very few contests or issues will be impacted by what happens online. But away from the overtly political websites the Internet is reconfiguring journalism and political discourse. Political journalism in the UK is already significantly networked. The blogs feed into the mainstream which itself is now widely connected online to the public. Social networks as well as specific interest websites are now framing the conversation alongside traditional media.”

US economist Bryan Caplan’s ‘Myth of the rational voter‘ is well worth a look.

Caplan probably doesn’t tell us anything that would surprise us much, but the way that he addresses the conflict between the notion of rationality that underpins the idea of homo economicus and the evidence from the way that people actually vote is interesting.

He identifies a number of types of irrationality – the willingness to sentimentalise and allow loyalty to get in the way, for instance – ‘rallying around the flag’ in a time of war, even if the war may not be in the national interest.

He looks at the way that voters simply get the facts spectacularly wrong before they vote on a subject (Americans, Caplan points out, believe that the US spends a huge amount more on foreign aid than it actually does – yet it votes accordingly).

Elsewhere, he echoes Matthew Parris’ views on the public perception of immigration – not understanding the more obscure economic benefits, and among his conclusions, he urgently entreats the political elites not to flatter the majority but instead to stand up to them.

I’m not sure that it’s a message that the public are very keen on at the moment.