Liberalism Against Populism: A Confrontation Between the Theory of Democracy and the Theory of Social Choice

Public choice theory is just full of interesting and counterintuitive results. It's most famous result, Arrow's impossibility theorem, says that democratic decision making over a fixed set of choices cannot be guaranteed to produce rational results--majorities might just prefer A to B, B to C, and also C to A. Furthermore, the only way to guarantee rational results is a dictatorship. These are truly strange results, which turn out to hold the keys to a deep understanding of democracy's mechanisms.Riker's book explains clearly some of the most important results of social choice theory. Then, he patiently leads the reader to understand how these seemingly esoteric theories explain an incredible amount of the chaos of modern democratic politics. Riker's discussion of importance of agenda setting is particularly illuminating. (Maybe his analysis is well known to political scientists, but I didn't know about it, and I found it really insightful). If the majority prefers A to B, and you strongly prefer B, what can you do in a democratic society? Riker shows that often, the answer is to change the subject--introduce a third option C which less popular than B, but more popular than A. By reframing the A vs. B choice in the context of C, you create a voting cycle where there was just a clear preference for A before. The result is democratic paralysis in which your least favorite choice, A, does not get implemented. I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in better understanding democracy. The presentation can get a bit technical at times, but Riker rewards the readers' patience richly.

This is a terrific book. It provides a good introduction to social choice theory and the problems it raises for political theory. He explains things in a very direct way, with minimal math, and uses excellent examples. A couple chapters are kind of wordy and too philosophical, but the book is still great.

Probably one of the most important books in political theory in the 20th century. An absolute modern classic! It should be on the bookshelves of every library and every political science student.