He was quoted in the media after the July 22 parliamentary elections as saying: “The [Justice and Development Party] AK Party’s election victory cannot be explained through reason. We should seek irrational reasons behind it.” The former ambassador Öymen, who seems to have forsaken his diplomatic skills after retirement, bluntly blames the irrationality of Turkish voters for the dismal showing of his party. But he is not alone in finding fault with the rationality of voters in democracies. Recently Bryan Caplan, an associate professor of economics at George Mason University, published a controversial book in which he argues that voters in democracies are irrational (”The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies,” Princeton University Press, 2007). According to Caplan, “in theory, democracy is a bulwark against socially harmful policies [such as protectionism], but in practice it gives them a safe harbor.” He calls this the “paradox of democracy.”Caplan’s “... central idea is that voters are worse than ignorant; they are, in a word, irrational -- and vote accordingly.” Their lack of education and knowledge, especially of economics, combined with their beliefs that one vote does not by itself matter in the election outcome and that the cost of the socially harmful policies they vote for will be borne by others, renders ordinary US voters irrational. As if the title of his book is not adequate to convey Caplan’s message, the book’s cover shows a large flock of sheep. Caplan argues that we should not blame special-interest groups and their lobbying of lawmakers for bad economic policies. He blames instead the ordinary voters who do not understand economics, for their popular misconceptions, irrational beliefs and personal biases. The ordinary voters elect politicians who either share or cynically pretend to share the same wrong-headed opinions and consequently enact legislation leading to bad economic policies. In other words, in democracies politicians give the voters who elect them what they want even though what they want is not in their own best economic interest.
According to Caplan, the ordinary voters suffer from four critical and systematic biases due to economic ignorance: (1) They do not understand how markets, especially international and labor markets work and the economic benefits markets provide (anti-market bias); (2) they are unaware of the principle of comparative advantage and the benefits of globalization, and they do not trust and do not want to interact with foreigners (anti-foreign bias); (3) they perversely prefer employment over production and do not appreciate the benefits of saving labor through rising productivity (make-work bias); and, (4) they fail to recognize the past and present economic progress around them and, lacking perspective on the rising living standards, they wrongly believe that their economic conditions go from bad to worse (pessimistic bias). Caplan, as a libertarian, is not against democracy as a form of government. He is against the strong role of the state in the economy, believing that the market, based on private choice, gets it right when it comes to implementing socially optimal policies much more frequently than the ballot box, based on collective choice.
I will not dwell here on the several criticisms as well as the merits of Caplan’s book, which is definitely worth reading. Instead, I will argue that the July 22 election suggests that at least the Turkish voters who voted for the AK Party -- in contrast to Caplan’s depiction of US voters -- are rational. They know without much formal education what is good for them, and elect those politicians who serve their economic interests. In making my case, I will rely on two reports issued by KONDA, the polling firm founded and headed by Tarhan Erdem, which is to be commended for its almost-perfect prediction of the July 22 election results. The first report contains the pre-election polling results and the second one analyzes the election results. KONDA reports make it clear that most Turkish voters based their decisions primarily on economic issues, not on political or cultural issues, such those relating to secularism. According to KONDA, 80 percent of AK Party voters believed the economic situation had been improving but almost 70 percent of CHP voters believed the opposite. AK Party voters, despite having less formal education and less income than their CHP counterparts, could see more clearly that the Turkish economy had performed extraordinarily well under the AK Party government, which they re-elected with a greater margin than in 2002.
According to the KONDA reports, there are three major, striking differences between AK Party voters and CHP voters. The first is the level of education. The AK Party attracts higher percentages of voters with less formal education than the CHP: among AK Party voters 76.7 percent had less than a middle school education; 18.6 percent had had a high school education and only 4.7 percent were university educated. Among the CHP voters, 49.1 percent had less than a middle school education; 30.6 percent had had a high school education; and 20.3 percent were university educated (more than twice the national average). Expressed differently, 55 percent of all voters with less than a middle school education favored the AK Party but only 14 percent of them favored the CHP; 37 percent of all voters with a high school education favored the AK Party but 25 percent of them favored the CHP; and 24 percent of all voters with a university education favored the AK Party but 42 percent of them favored the CHP. This is stunning proof that a lack of formal education is no obstacle to voter rationality.
The second difference is the level of income. The AK Party attracts higher percentages of voters with lower incomes than the CHP does: 55 percent of poor voters favored the AK Party but only 8 percent of them favored the CHP; 54 percent of lower-middle class voters favored the AK Party but 15 percent of them favored the CHP; 43 percent of middle-class voters favored the AK Party while 22 percent of them favored the CHP; 35 percent of upper-middle class voters favored the AK Party with 33 percent of them favoring the CHP; and 23 percent of rich voters favored the AK Party while 50 percent of them favored the CHP. Interesting. The CHP is supposed to be a “socialist” party as a member of Socialist International!
The third difference is the attitude toward globalization. Higher percentages of AK Party voters than CHP voters favor integrating the economy with the world economy, opening the economy to foreign direct investment, and keeping tariffs low on imports.
The KONDA reports justifiably emphasize the Turkish voter’s capacity to learn and change with the times. They underscore his/her rejection -- based on cumulative experience, common sense, and tolerance -- of political parties that promise easy solutions by cutting corners. Bryan Caplan might wish to consider studying the Turkish voter for comparison with the US voter in his next research project.
