Process Utility, Participation, and the Value of Democracy to Humans

Abstract

Most theories of democracy assume that humans receive value from democracy through participating in the process. The value may be either consumption utility from the act of participation or investment benefits from the difference one’s participation can make in the outcome. Such theories implicitly assume as well that low participation means that humans receive little value from the democratic process. Using an experiment in which subjects are able to set prices at which they can sell their right to participate in a naturally occurring real election with traditionally low participation, we find that humans who typically do not vote refuse to sell their rights more if they must do so in advance of the election and demand higher prices for advance sales. We thus demonstrate that humans receive value from the democratic process independent of whether they participate in that process or not. Moreover, this value from the democratic process can be quite sizable and greater than the investment benefits from voting. Hence, the conjecture that low participation implies human apathy and indifference to the democratic process is false.