American Political Science Review
- American Political Science Review / Volume 105 / Issue 04 / November 2011, pp 683-701
- Copyright © American Political Science Association 2011
- DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0003055411000323 (About DOI), Published online: 18 October 2011
Research Article
Voting with Your Feet: Exit-based Empowerment in Democratic Theory
MARK E. WARRENa1 c1
a1 University of British Columbia
Abstract
Democracy is about including those who are potentially affected by collective decisions in making those decisions. For this reason, contemporary democratic theory primarily assumes membership combined with effective voice. An alternative to voice is exit: Dissatisfied members may choose to leave a group rather than voice their displeasure. Rights and capacities for exit can function as low-cost, effective empowerments, particularly for those without voice. But because contemporary democratic theory often dismisses exit as appropriate only for economic markets, the democratic potentials of exit have rarely been theorized. Exit-based empowerments should be as central to the design and integrity of democracy as distributions of votes and voice, long considered its key structural features. When they are integrated into other democratic devices, exit-based empowerments should generate and widely distribute usable powers for those who need them most, evoke responsiveness from elites, induce voice, discipline monopoly, and underwrite vibrant and pluralistic societies.
(Online publication October 18 2011)
Correspondence:
c1 Mark E. Warren is Harold and Dorrie Merilees Chair in the Study of Democracy, Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia, C425-1866 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1, Canada (warren@politics.ubc.ca).
Footnotes
Earlier versions of this article were presented at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, the 2009 Meeting of the Political Ethics Working Group of the American Political Science Association, the University of Roskilde, the University of British Columbia, the Australian National University, and the University of Zurich. The article has benefited enormously from these audiences, and from comments from Eric Beerbohm, Aubin Calvert, Sean Gray, Baogang He, Chris Kam, Jane Mansbridge, Eric Macgilvray, Quinton Mayne, Kirstie McClure, Michael Neblo, Diane Newell, Janis Sarra, Eva Sørensen, Dennis Thompson, and Jacob Törfing, as well as the anonymous reviewers for this journal. The author gratefully acknowledges the research assistance of Sean Gray, and the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Peter Wall Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of British Columbia.
