Matthew Yglesias thinks we should have fewer elections in the U.S. To wit:
Consider, for example, America’s staggering quantity of elected officials. If you live in Toronto, you vote for a member of the Toronto City Council, you vote for a member of the Ontario Parliament, and you vote for a member of the Canadian Parliament.
Werd! If civic republicanism is to have any chance in the United States where we actually expect citizens to be informed about politics, then we have to give them a fair shot. California, by contrast, treats it’s citizens like the closet organizing guy from Saturday Night Live. Instead of dirt, we have propositions and instead of water, we have elections for Insurance Commissioner!
Comments 3
Kenneth M. Kambara — January 31, 2010
I think it's sociologist Barry Schwartz who discusses the ills of too much choice.
I think Canadians get worn out on elections because of the frequency and irregularity at the federal and provincial levels, due to the parliamentary system. There have been federal general elections every two years {2004, 2006, 2008}, although the campaign cycle is mercifully short. Ontario has had 3 general elections in the past 10 years {1999, 2003, 2007}, as has British Columbia {2001, 2005, 2009}.
I've always felt the propositions in California were ridonculous, i.e., why isn't the legislature doing their job?
rkatclu — February 1, 2010
Regarding the paradox of choice:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/9cebd444-cd9c-11de-8162-00144feabdc0.html
Benjamin Scheibehenne, a psychologist at the University of Basel, was thinking along these lines when he decided (with Peter Todd and, later, Rainer Greifeneder) to design a range of experiments to figure out when choice demotivates, and when it does not.
"But a curious thing happened almost immediately. They began by trying to replicate some classic experiments – such as the jam study, and a similar one with luxury chocolates. They couldn’t find any sign of the “choice is bad” effect. Neither the original Lepper-Iyengar experiments nor the new study appears to be at fault: the results are just different and we don’t know why.
After designing 10 different experiments in which participants were asked to make a choice, and finding very little evidence that variety caused any problems, Scheibehenne and his colleagues tried to assemble all the studies, published and unpublished, of the effect.
The average of all these studies suggests that offering lots of extra choices seems to make no important difference either way. There seem to be circumstances where choice is counterproductive but, despite looking hard for them, we don’t yet know much about what they are."
jose — February 2, 2010
Thanks for this Ryan!