Normative Assessments of Strategic Voting: A Question of Alternatives

One of the more prominent and ongoing themes in contemporary political theory is the distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory. Put simply, the issue of ideal/non-ideal theory concerns whether facts about the world are necessary or relevant for political theorising. This debate encompasses both discussion of the exact nature and scope of the problem, as well as specific debates regarding justice, oppression. This debate has, in turn, manifested in various debates regarding the exact role that facts about the world play in normative theory, such as those relating to empirically informed political theory. The purpose of this paper is to interrogate a particular locus of the tension between ideal normative theorising and facts about the world: namely, political institutions. Specifically, I examine the tension between idea and non-ideal theory with respect to strategic voting. Strategic voting is an indistinct phenomenon of electoral politics that remains a concern to political science and public policy. A strategic vote is one where a voter casts a ballot for a less preferred candidate to achieve a better outcome. The phenomenon is a well-established feature of studies in social choice and political science: the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem, for example, demonstrates how any single winner-ranked system is vulnerable to strategic voting or is dictatorial. The existence and prevalence of strategic voting have been further demonstrated empirically. Not only has strategic voting been shown to be relevant for understanding both political behaviour and electoral outcomes, but it has also been subject to normative assessments, and therefore of concern to normative political theory. A range of studies in democratic theory suggests that strategic voting is contrary to principles of democracy, such as honesty and transparency in the expression of preferences. Similarly, strategic voting can also have detrimental consequences for democratic principles and processes. On the other hand, however, there is reason to doubt the extent to which we can characterise strategic voting as detrimental to democracy. Riker, for example, suggests that whether or not we problematise strategic voting depends on our particular standards. All of this is to say that the normative status of strategic voting is by no means settled. The purpose of this paper is to revisit the way by which we assess the normative status of strategic voting through an examination of the possible solutions to its effect on electoral outcomes. It stands to reason that the characterisation of strategic voting as having a detrimental impact on democracy necessitates devising some way to reduce or eliminate it. Typically, proposed solutions involve electoral reform, such as adopting a system that is less susceptible to strategic voting. Despite some other contributions, plausible alternatives to addressing strategic voting are otherwise relatively under-explored. This paper argues for a greater nexus between normative theory and electoral rules and suggests that an examination of how we address strategic voting has consequences for assessing its normative status. As such, any assessment of the normative status of strategic voting should be read in the context of possible alternatives or measures for addressing it.