Mobs and Elections

From "The Trouble With Elections: Everything We Thought We Knew About Democracy is Wrong," Chapter 13.4

There is a worry about sortition that is related to the fear of incompetence, but somewhat distinct. Even if people act competently in jury settings, some people fear that average people are easily provoked into mob thinking or behavior. Does this propensity make sortition dangerous? Thoughtless mob behavior is a stereotype that is common fare on comedy programs (it is a recurring motif in the Simpsons cartoons, for example). Mob behavior is known by psychologists as deindividuation (thinking and behaving as part of a group, rather than as an individual). Even before Scottish journalist Charles Mackay popularized the phrase "the madness of crowds” in his 1841 book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, distrust of people’s herd behavior had been common.

One fear (frequently mentioned by the US Founders), which has echoed down the ages, is that the general public is prone to mob-like “intemperate passions.” This line of reasoning can lead to the conclusion that perhaps it is better if they are preoccupied by celebrity, pop culture, and current “Internet influencers,” instead of governance. Mob psychology and conformity are real, as shown by scientific research and devastating historical examples (such as lynchings).  

The fear that sortition would empower “the mob” is not grounded in a thoroughgoing definition of what a mob is – so it is tricky to refute. It is a visceral fear. Mob “madness” is typically driven by a sort of positive feedback loop from people observing the attitudes or behaviors of others. It is an exaggerated form of groupthink. Mob behavior is often a response to a leader of some sort, though not always. While the word “mob” is pejorative, such deindividuation can also be neutral or praiseworthy. Examples include an emotionally powerful theater or concert performance, a religious sermon, a mass protest against some injustice, or a crowd rushing to the aid of victims of an earthquake. These all hinge on thinking fast (system one in Kahneman’s terminology). But good policymaking requires more careful assessment, and thinking slow (system two) in order to avoid horrible mistakes.

Mob behavior is not inevitable. It is contingent on circumstances that can be promoted or guarded against. Many scholars, from Condorcet and his “Jury Theorem” of the 18th century, Francis Galton with his discovery of the uncanny accuracy of the average guess of the weight of an ox at a country fair in the early twentieth century, to vast amounts of current research by countless psychologists, have examined this. They have all found that protecting the independence of individual assessments is essential to avoid lopsided swings, which can occur when people become aware of the assessments of others. These and related issues were discussed in previous chapters, where I presented conditions necessary for good decision-making – separating active give-and-take deliberation (tapping collective intelligence) in the crafting or proposals, and independent internal deliberation (harnessing the wisdom of crowds) in the judging of those proposals.

What about mobs and elected politicians?

It is important to recognize that elected representatives within a legislature can also be subject to the same deindividuation mob psychology as any other group of citizens (though often divided into separate partisan mobs).  Even Schumpeter, who was quite pessimistic about the abilities of average citizens in terms of political reasoning, did not limit this assessment to public “mobs” in the classic sense. Schumpeter wrote:

“It must not be forgotten that the phenomena of crowd psychology are by no means confined to mobs rioting…Every parliament, every committee, every council of war composed of a dozen generals in their sixties, displays in however mild a form some of the features that stand out so glaringly in the case of the rabble, in particular a reduced sense of responsibility, a lower level of energy of thought and greater sensitiveness to non-logical influences.”  

Candidates, parties, and certain media outlets also have a vested interest in promoting mob behavior. Election campaigns and politicians frequently seek to foster mob mentality, as a useful get-out-the-vote tool. But the obverse is also true – when the population is denied any meaningful policy-making role,  protests and mass mobilizations (mobs) are seen as a tactical necessity, in order to threaten or appeal to the designated decision-makers. Elections promote the madness of crowds both coming and going.

Politicians also have an interest in deceiving and misinforming voters, which can foment mob thinking, if misinformation will aid the election of the “right” candidate. Sometimes it is sufficient to degrade facts into “he-said-she-said” opinions. As Dartmouth professor Russell Muirhead wrote: 

“Those who crave office inevitably will find that certain facts get in the way. They wish for a world that embraces their ambitions and makes their distinctive claims persuasive, but the world always contains certain facts that are not accommodating. They may wish, for instance, for a world in which tax cuts increase government revenues, or for one where they are judged by their best intentions rather than their gaffes. When the facts do not comply, they face a standing incentive to contest and massage the facts in order to convert them into mere opinions – or eradicate them wholly.” 

Often it is enough for elites to provide selective anecdotes and information with high salience, rather than resort to outright lying, in order to create a false public understanding. The prevalence of the belief that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks, or that weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq were commonly cited examples.  

Indeed, the competitive partisanship within the electoral environment increases the likelihood of mob thinking and behavior. If one’s concern is mobs, then citizens’ assemblies are probably the best antidote that exists. Unlike mobs in the street, or politician “mobs” constantly in campaign mode, well-designed sortition bodies cultivate slow thinking, which is anathema for creating mobs. Slow thinking and deliberation with conflicting arguments may still lead to groupthink, but not the extreme form represented by “the madness of crowds,” which is based on thinking fast.

In the next section we will look at whether elections return competent policy decision-makers.