How to read the Indian voter's mind

One of the abiding mysteries of politics is why do voters vote the way they do. Ever since television presenters introduced mind-numbing data analysis as a substitute for voter behaviour, we had to put up with ignorant blather on a monumental scale.

One reason for this is that the Indian pioneers of this approach were data-obsessed economists whose main objective was to make predictions about which party would get how many seats.

It began in the late 1980s as a sport that soon transformed into a game of voter surveys, amounts of funding and the TRPs of election shows. Quite quickly thereafter — and therefore — it all became meaningless. I know because I used to participate in these shows. It made no difference what I or anyone else said.

Considering that it had all been started by economists, one would have expected a somewhat more thoughtful application of the various analyses of individual behaviour when confronted with multiple choices.

Instead what we have been given is the tediously repetitive analysis of group behaviour — caste and community for the most part. But that, while being important for political parties, tells us nothing about individual voting decisions because, just as social utility is not an aggregate of individual utilities, group voting behaviour is not simply an aggregate of individual voting behaviour.
 

It’s that analysis, of the individual voter’s choices, that has been lacking in the Indian discourse. As a result, we don’t have any idea of what matters to the individual Indian voter — goodies or cash or something else?

Revealed preference

In economics, the issues surrounding individual choice when it comes to buying something have been discussed for a very long time. In 1938, Paul Samuelson formulated a theory that has come to be known as revealed preference theory. Voting is exactly that, a revealed preference.

Until Samuelson’s theory, individual consumer behaviour was predicated on the concept of the “marginal rate of substitution”. This is the amount of a good an individual is willing to give up in exchange for another without a reduction in utility.

But there was a problem. No one could measure the underlying utility functions. Revealed preference theory took care of that problem by eliminating the concept of utility altogether. Instead it allowed you to infer preferences from what could be observed.

In the case of elections, this is the vote itself. The Aam Aadmi Party sweep in Punjab is a case in point.

For obvious reasons, I don’t want to push the analogy too far. After all, a purchase decision is not exactly the same as casting a vote.

But the basic issue remains: What can you infer from the revealed preference theory in the case of voting, assuming there is no coercion? When I vote, am I voting for the candidate or the party? When I buy a toaster, am I buying the toaster or the brand?

This question takes us into some really slippery issues which, fortunately, Amartya Sen had analysed way back in 1977. His paper* was about what he called rational fools, but he wasn’t talking about voter behaviour. It was about consumer behaviour. Nevertheless, some inferences about individual political preferences can also be drawn.

Rational fools

The question for Dr Sen was whether it was true, as had been assumed since the time of Adam Smith, that people always acted only to maximise their utility.

He introduced a new idea, that of commitment, that influenced individual choice but which “drives a wedge between personal choice and personal welfare”. That is, you may well choose something that’s not the best for you.

His basic point was simple: “Commitment sometimes relates to a sense of obligation going beyond the consequences.” I think this is crucial for understanding voting behaviour. The rise of “strongmen” around the world illustrates this point.

People often vote for leaders of parties that are sure to harm them in some way but a commitment to the party’s philosophy or aims makes them choose both the party and its leader. These are the committed voters.

The best illustration of this is the re-election of Indira Gandhi in 1980 after her defeat in 1977 for having imposed the Emergency. The huge win of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh in March 2017 after the massively damaging demonetisation just five months earlier also illustrates the point.

Let me conclude with Dr Sen’s conclusion. He quotes two lines from Robert Frost: It is as true as Caesar’s name was Kaiser; That no economist was ever wiser.

And adds about the rational economic man, “Perhaps a similarly dubious tribute can be paid to the economic man in our modified conception. If he shines at all, he shines in comparison — in contrast — with the dominant image of the rational fool.”

The same perhaps can be said of the “political man” too.

*https://cdn.uclouvain.be/public/Exports%20reddot/cr-cridis/documents/sen_on_TCR_rational_fools.pdf