ABSTRACT
Political action in the zweckrational style is sufficiently different from the wertrational style for one to expect clear differences between the political cultures and systems in which each predominates. Anthony Downs's account of the rationality of voters specifies two conditions. First applying the general condition of political rationality to the voter's case, he concludes that a voter will act with political rationality if he casts his vote for the party he believes will provide him with more benefits than any other'. The second component of a voter's rationality is more closely related to his electoral function, as Downs conceives it. Having specified that the purpose of elections in a democracy is to select a government, he derives as a condition for a voter's rationality that 'his actions enable him to play his part in selecting a government efficiently'. On this interpretation, what the 'political economists' study are but the ripples; the underlying political swell requires other concepts and other methods.
