Schuessler's Logic of Expressive Choice

Been awhile since I've done a book review on here.  I love to read.  I used to plow through a book or two a week.  However, since I've been in school and have approximately 1000 pages of reading per week of political science stuff to get through, not to mention the written analyses of those readings that I have to write, I haven't been reading as much "for fun" as I used to, and most people that read this blog are probably not interested in the readings I have to do for school.

Anyways, I'm taking a class on voting behavior this semester.  It's the topic I hope to write my dissertation on, and I really like the professor and the other people in the class (it's a class of 7, including me).  I have already read many of the canonical books in this area, so I am glad that the professor is exposing me to other works I was not previously familiar with.

Today's class focuses on rational choice.  I don't really need to go into detail about what rational choice is because those reading this in the field have an intimate understanding of it (unless they have been living under a rock - it is one of the most dominant yet controversial theories in our field in the past 20 years...what Kuhn would refer to as a paradigm shift) and those not in the field probably don't care to know that much about it.  Suffice it to say that it is generally the borrowing of economic concepts such as cost, benefit, and utility to explain political behavior (in this case voter behavior).  According to the theory, voters make cost-benefit decisions that are rational based on their given preferences in determining whether to vote and for whom to vote.  There are problems with this theory empirically and theoretically, but it is also appealing in its parsimony.  It is certainly the most appealing to me out of any of the other theories I have been exposed to.

However, for today's class we were assigned a reading I had not yet read (or heard of): A Logic of Expressive Choice, by Alexander Schuessler.  This is the dissertation I wish I could have written.  He combines two of my all-time favorite political science books: two rational choice canons: Olson's Logic of Collective Action and Downs' Economic Theory of Democracy along with some of the more appealing parts of socio-psychological theories of vote choice.  His basic argument is that many people vote based on identity and that voting is an act of displaying one's identity much like making selections from a jukebox (that's why his theory is sometimes known as the jukebox theory of voting) or putting a bumpersticker on one's car. 

Anyways, if you are interested in this kind of stuff, I highly recommend his book.  I was surprised I have not been exposed to it yet.  It should definitely be on more syllabi.  And, as I noted in my reaction paper for today's class, it seems likely to me this theory could account for a lot of people's voting behavior in this year's election if Obama (or to a lesser extent Hillary) receives the Democratic nomination.