ABSTRACT
This chapter begins to develop a richer theoretical and normative understanding of electoral democracy, with the ultimate aim of using that richer theory to help expose those problems in our current practices that are caused or exaggerated by our theoretical misunderstandings. It utilizes the political scientists' notions of critical elections and partisan realignments to illustrate the sense of an election having a "social meaning." The chapter begins with a sketch of the multiple interests, both individual and social, implicated by a right to vote. It shows that individualism and instrumentalism, despite their significant theoretical drawbacks, have been unspoken but powerful components of recent US Supreme Court decisions interpreting the constitutional doctrines of the right to vote. The chapter contrasts the complex account of voting with the narrower account, familiar in theories of politics that draw on neoclassical economics, which presupposes an account of human rational action based on instrumental individualism.
