As the Discipline Turns: A Comparison of the
Michigan and Downs’ Models
Two methodologies in political science altered the landscape of the discipline. The “behavioral revolution” — a movement with roots dating back to the 1940s and an influence still prominent — was a fundamental departure from earlier political science that focused on “thick-description” and fact collecting. Instead, behaviorists were concerned with quantifying politics and putting the “science” into a maturing discipline. The Downsian model of political science, more commonly known as a rational choice model, further pushed political science in a more “scientific” direction, analyzing American politics from a positivist perspective rather than political science based on normative implications. Among others, two important concepts were highlighted by these new approaches to the discipline: voting and ideology. The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on these concepts and analyze in detail the diverging approaches of both schools of thought. While both pushed the discipline to a more positivist and less normative approach, the models nevertheless illuminate different aspects of voting and ideology.
Downs: Putting the Science in Political Science
Behavioralism, simply put, seeks to explain politics through methods and theories accepted by the standards and assumptions of modern political science (Dahl 1961: 767). Although Robert Dahl grew critical of behavioralism after being an early proponent, he nevertheless recognized that one of the lasting impressions of the behavioral movement was in its study of voting behavior. As he noted: “Each study has profited from the last; and as broadly trained political scientists… our understanding …[has] greatly increased” (Dahl 769). National political surveys were one way that political science tried to move more “scientific” in increasing this understanding. In particular, The American Voter and the
Voting and Ideology
For Robert Putnam, voting was the “fundamental democratic principle of equality,” and to not vote was akin to withdrawing from the political community (Putnam 35). Putnam’s notion that civic communities engaged in voting were critical to democratic government was in some ways a response to earlier behavioral and rational-choice models of voting. Although Neimi and Weisberg agree that voting is the foundation of democracy, they conclude that often nonvoting can be an acceptable way of doing business (Neimi and Weisberg 20). Democracy of the kind Putnam spoke rested on rather “lofty principles,” that few citizens knew what to do with. However, behavioral analysis still tried to explain voting through survey data, seeking answers about identification, orientation and party attachment. Because the electorate makes important decisions, it is pertinent to know the composition of attitudes and knowledge individuals have about politics (
In terms of studying ideology, the Downs’ model and
The purpose of this paper was to explore; all too briefly, voting and ideology with respect to the
 David Mayhew has been critical of this notion, especially Burnham’s acknowledgment that the “realigning” election was the reason for the downturn. (See Mayhew 2002, 11).
 This might seem similar to Nie and Verba’s model. While both argue that voters sometimes act on a rational calculus, Nie and Verba were more interested in group-related participation.
 It is not clear for Converse what “important” views exactly are. In other words, the importance seems determined by the authors.