I disagree that self interest is the only, or even major, determinant for voting behaviour. I am a 'rusted on' Liberal/coalition voter who has voted Labour only twice. Once was for Whitlam and his 'it's time' campaign which I lived to regret! The other was the Rudd election where I voted to get rid of an increasingly arrogant and meglomaniac Howard even though I dreaded a union return to untrammelled power as 'payback!'
In the coming Qld State election, I will be voting Coalition, even though they haven't yet got their act together. Principally to get rid of the lubberly crew of the goodship S.S. Smart State as it increasingly morphs into a risible G&S style HMS Pinafore or, even worse, an RMS Titanic!

I would think that ideology does not play a big part in voting these days with the tweedledum and tweedledee state of politics.

Rudd is equally beholden to big business as the Coalition and in general the two major parties tend to advertise to the whole rather than one particular interest group. There are occasionally shades of ideology in rhetoric such as the campaign against Work Choices but in reality there are lots of shades of grey.

There probably is a small number of self-interested voters out there but many people I know who voted for Rudd this time around who voted for Howard previously did so for reasons of principle and the fear of the influence of the extreme right wing, lack of consultation and Work Choices.

It is surprising that Howard did not get voted out after the children overboard affair and the never never a GST lie with its core and non-core promises. But there has to be a viable alternative and Beazley's lack of resolve and 'lets see which way the wind blows' on many issues lost him his chance of being PM.

The increase in the Green vote would suggest that people are thinking more about ideology and issues from a non-selfish perspective.

I think voting is motivated by both factors, however it is ultimately self-interest that is the final determinant of which way their vote goes.

Parties tend to govern with a timetable within the current electoral cycle and votes are cast more with the party leader in mind than for individual candidates.

In what we call a Democracy (actually it's only a Parliamentary Democracy) we are only presented with a real choice between two parties and whoever wins has a blank cheque we call a "mandate" that allows them to go beyond their stated policies as circumstances permit.

Since the voter has no say in such mandated policy or any backroom deals, the final choice of voting comes down to a contrived fear of the alternative plus financial greed.

Self-interest comes first, then ideological viewpoints that don’t directly affect one’s self-interest in terms of quality of life or material gain or whatever your main self-interests might be.

Issues like Tampa, sorry, Iraq war, etc don’t affect the average Australian’s self-interest very much. So they are issues that people can feel strongly about with respect to politicians and even hold as their main vote-determinant, if there are not strong self-interest issues that take precedence in the determination of their vote.

Given that Rudd deliberately tried to be as similar to Howard as he could…without admitting it…there was a lot of room for people to have ideological non-self-interest issues as their main vote-determinants, because it seemed that the economic boom and the way it was being managed was set to continue just the same under Rudd as it did under Howard.

The more interesting issue is the conflict between short-term and long-term self-interest. This is particularly relevant to me, in my push for sustainability and hence away from continuous rapid growth, in a paradigm in which never-ending growth is practically sacred.

I wonder if the majority of voters would be willing to vote for the adoption of a sustainability paradigm, which would necessitate pulling right back on growth, starting with immigration and ending with a steady-state economy?

I think they would if the message was sold in the right manner. If short-term self-interest was all-important, I don’t think that there would be any chance of the general populace accepting a no-growth or low-growth sustainability regime.

The entire blog depends on a very narrow interpretation of self-interest and arcane political theories that have little value beyond academia and political apologists.

The narrowness of his definition and the superficiality of his reasoning leave me wondering what was the real point of the article? It lacks real substance and anything that resembles a meaningful analysis.

I would suggest that Graham’s caveat is far more meaningful particularly since most people vote for the party that “they perceive is best for them” with little understanding of policy, what’s involved and the consequences
Most elections are for swing voters, a very small minority.
I would propose most of the issues fear based fear of the unknown, fear of losing something (tribal/national identity, national security et al). The fact that they perceive a loss therefore it can be more fundamentally defined as self interest.

The author’s blog comes across as a poorly reasoned (shallow) rationalization of the Conservative electoral loss.One wonders as to his self interest.

This is the least convincing of all the ‘troppo’ aspirants thus far.

I think that Ludwig and Examinator are raising this discussion to a higher level of analysis. What is "self interest". It is too simple to think of it merely as the immediate hip-pocket nerve. It is true that financial gain and cost counts a lot. But to many voters, self interest involves voting behaviour that adds to their self respect, sense of fairness, and confirmation of their identity as decent persons. Certainly in harsh and brutal times narrow self interest is a powerful motive but, when many people are reasonably secure in the satisfaction of their material needs, more lofty motives emerge.