2025/08/06 by Matthew Barnfield · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Political Philosophy and Ethics #Populism, Right-Wing Movements #Electoral Systems and Political Participation
paper · doi:10.1177/00323217251359362
It is well established in political science that those who favour an election outcome tend to say it has a higher chance of success than those who oppose it. This tendency towards so-called ‘wishful thinking’ is often treated as a problem for democracy because it shows that voters are, as the term suggests, irrational. In this article, I make the case that partisan electoral expectations are significant not because they demonstrate widespread irrationality, but because they show how voters make sense of their role in democracies. I provide an alternative account of partisan electoral expectations as following a principle of electoral hope . On this account, partisan electoral expectations are rational in a practical, if not necessarily theoretical, sense.