Abstract
There are a lot of books about voters and what they do on Election Day—whether they turn out to vote, how they vote, and why. Bruter and Harrison offer something different, a book more about what the vote means to those who do participate. As the authors put it: “Could understanding whether elections make people happy and bring them closure matter more than who they vote for?” Inside the Mind of a Voter provides a theoretically engaging and empirically wide-ranging exploration, one to which it (truly) is difficult to do justice in a review.
The book centers on what the authors refer to as homo suffragator, the voter in a representative democracy. Her voting behavior is of interest but so is the voting experience and the resolution it brings. These are the authors’ three primary dependent variables, the full model of which is complex. To begin with, those variables are rightly seen as closely related. Also important is that their exploration of voter psychology introduces numerous independent variables, most notably, personality, morality, memory, and identity. This leads the authors to introduce various concepts that become critical to their analyses, ranging from the more intuitive, like electoral ergonomics and atmosphere, to the more abstract, such as projected efficacy and empathic displacement, the latter of which features prominently in the book and refers to the tendency of voters to consider others in their own experience and behavior.
The methodology is equally ambitious. The authors rely on surveys, experiments, interviews, diaries, and direct observation. They implement combinations of these methodologies in six countries: France, Georgia, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States (US), and South Africa. The product of their analyses is a rich, nuanced portrait of voters, one that reminds me of Kathy Cramer’s ethnographic exploration of The Politics of Resentment, though Bruter and Harrison’s book has a broader theoretical and empirical scope.
The resulting book is as enjoyable to read as it is fascinating, and from which I learned a great deal. I’m not sure how much additional light it sheds on the usual suspects in political science research—who votes, how they vote, and why. (To be clear, I am not saying that it doesn’t, just that I’m not sure; more on this below.) It does shed substantial light on the electoral experience—what the vote means to people and how it affects them—and electoral resolution. A lot of people care about voting. A lot also see it as a positive experience. For many, it is exciting, particularly the first time, as I and presumably other readers recall from our own experiences.
One of the highlights of the book is the examination of electoral identity. Here, the authors consider whether voters see themselves more as supporters or referees, where the former cheer on their team and the latter focus on which deserves to win. The authors find more of the latter than the former, though it varies in interesting ways across countries (and elections) and, of course, characteristics of individuals.
Another highlight is the assessment of electoral resolution. They find that the end of the election cycle is a highly emotional experience for voters and often upsetting, producing electoral hostility. This may not surprise readers in the wake of recent elections, the consequences of which the authors explicitly address. What might surprise, however, is that, according to the authors, the reactions are not only—or even primarily—partisan.
While I very much commend the authors for what they have accomplished, I was left thinking about a couple of things after reading the book. Substantively, I wondered about the contribution it makes to the bodies of research on sociotropic voting, the consequences of winning and losing, the election cycle (and not just as regards the evolution of voter preferences), and news choice. Greater engagement here would have helped clarify how their findings comport with and differ from what has gone before in these areas. Methodologically, I wondered about the causal connections between personality, memory, and identity and other variables of interest, including turnout and vote choice. They demonstrate various associations of real importance; it is just that the true direction of effects is not always plain.
This is not at all to gainsay what Bruter and Harrison have done. Indeed, I like the book, and it is my hope that their work spurs on new scholarship in the area, research that both builds on and extends their analyses and probes and challenges it as well. It is how science marches on, after all, and their claim of “flipping the electoral world upside-down” seems designed to provoke such research. I very much look forward to seeing their next steps and those of others who join the endeavor. For now, I highly recommend Inside the Mind of a Voter.