Individuals have little incentive to vote, acquire political information or contribute campaign funds, because their vote has very little chance of affecting the outcome of an election. Jankowski offers an explanation and evidence for political participation based on the fact that most individuals are weakly altruistic.

Richard Jankowski is Professor of Political Science at the SUNY at Fredonia, USA. He has also taught at the University of Iowa and University of Arizona, USA. He holds a PhD from the University of Chicago, USA. His areas of specialization are political behavior, political economy, comparative political institutions, statistics, and game theory. He has published widely in political science, sociology and economic journals. His current research interests include foundations of rational choice theory, institutional economics, the political economy of growth, central bank intervention in exchange-rate markets, and democratization.

1. Introduction 2. Why Participate in Politics?: Beyond Self-Interest 3. Why Vote?: The Evidence 4. Why Become Politically Informed? 5. The Post-Election Phase: Public Interest Groups 6. A Gene for Altruism? 7. Altruism and Redistributive Government Policies 8. Altruistic Conservatives: Varieties of Conservatism 9. An Epistemic Defense of Democracy: Democracies Do it Better? 10. Representative Democracy: Electoral and Post-Electoral Phases