Few books can be called workmanlike as well as exciting, analytic as well as poignant. Hiring and Firing Public Officials achieves those rare pairings by methodically pursuing an academic coup. Justin Buchler aims to replace electoral theory's dominant “market paradigm”—whose pioneers include Joseph Schumpeter (Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 1942) and Anthony Downs (An Economic Model of Democracy, 1957)—with a more accurate “employment model,” and to defend that new model against all manner of attack. Buchler prosecutes his goals doggedly, repetitively, and quite effectively. The result is an intelligent, important new book that may not dazzle but will challenge settled convictions and change more than a few minds. The author's occasionally defensive tone is understandable given the nature of his ambition. His book advocates paradigmatic revolution and, to borrow from Mao Zedong, revolution is not a dinner party.

Mao's famous dictum rebuts an analogy: Revolution is not like a dinner party. Buchler's main argument rebuts another one: Elections are not like markets. The market paradigm that has long dominated electoral theory relies on a faulty analogy. Buchler proposes an alternative “employment paradigm,” arguing that it leaves analogies behind and captures the “literal function” of elections—the hiring and firing of public officials. As he states often, “the purpose of this book is to build an electoral theory around this literal interpretation of elections rather than around an analogy” (p. 59).

A second argument follows closely behind. The market paradigm suggests certain normative commitments. If the paradigm fails, those commitments lose their urgency as well. For example, markets demand competition, and so the electoral market paradigm—based on an analogy between elections and markets, with candidates cast as market firms and voters cast as consumers—correspondingly depicts competitive elections as democracy's lifeblood. If elections are about employment decisions rather than market dynamics, however, then competitive elections might not be so vital and, in some instances, might actually be harmful for democracy.

As Buchler well knows, his first argument will upset electoral theory devotees and his second will unsettle the rest of us. The concept of competitive elections resonates deeply with citizens as well as scholars. Many will ask how he could possibly demote competitiveness without denigrating democracy. The answer turns out to be: pretty convincingly. Analytic philosophy paves the way. Buchler points out that while scholars, politicians, and journalists praise competitive elections, we seldom pay attention to what we mean by that term. As a result we talk past one another and lose sight of the best means to achieve our own goals. He sets about clarifying our terminology and exposing logical flaws. As one whose scholarship also aims to illuminate our commitments by clarifying our terms, I appreciate the author's approach and admire the rigor of his philosophical steps.

Buchler begins by unpacking the multiple meanings that “competitive” can entail. First, he distinguishes between three elements of electoral competition that are sometimes lumped together: competitive elections, competitive electoral behavior, and a competitive framework of electoral laws. Focusing then on competitive elections, he distinguishes between five meanings that advocates of competitiveness employ: uncertainty of outcome, marginality (closeness) of outcome, number of candidate options (more being preferable to fewer), high rates of turnover, and no distortionary advantages for incumbents (pp. 23–44). When advocating for competitive elections, we cannot employ all of those meanings because some of them actually conflict (pp. 40–1). More to the point, we should not prioritize any of those kinds of competition except the last one (“no distortionary advantages for incumbents”) because the others, on examination, do not ensure either intrinsic or instrumental value for democracy. As to the one meaning of competition that democracy cannot do without, the absence of distortionary incumbent advantages, Buchler claims that the employment model and not the dominant market paradigm best accounts for its importance.

The rest of the book proceeds in like fashion, unpacking concepts and breaking apart commonly used terms and supporting logical argument with empirical data where appropriate. Amidst his rigorous dissections Buchler returns to the following, core points. Elections are not like markets but literally are employment decisions; voters are employers, candidates are job applicants, and officeholders are employees. Employers do not want high employee turnover but, rather, want employees to perform their jobs well and to warrant continued employment. If we voters want our representatives to execute their duties faithfully, we should treat them as employers treat employees, providing incentives for good performance and a credible threat of termination for failure. Competitive elections entail the opposite conditions and incentives. Their existence means that even officeholders who have done their jobs well face uncertain job prospects and eventual termination. Buchler wants us to ask: What company would operate that way? What qualified job candidate would want to work there?

In addition to its methodical, analytic framework, the book contains a poignant, personal subplot. It opens and closes with the author's painful experience as an election-theory Cassandra. Within the first few pages, we learn that Buchler “spent the last several years making arguments that are frequently greeted with a form of skepticism that borders on derision, and occasionally ad hominem attack” (p. ix). In the book's final lines, he muses that one-half of his goal may still go unfulfilled: “[I]t is unlikely that the arguments in this book will convince many people that competitive elections are fundamentally incompatible with a healthy democracy” (p. 240). Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) predicts just such struggles, because dominant paradigms do not shift without a fight.

As in the Johnny Cash song “A Boy Named Sue,” however, in Buchler's case the ordeals of the underdog may have played a salutary role in toughening the protagonist (or at least his arguments). I stress this point not in order to psychoanalyze the author but to explain one of the book's greatest strengths—its thoroughness—and to reflect on Kuhn's argument that resistance to new paradigms may be useful and even necessary for the development of science. As an outsider rebelling against a dominant paradigm, Buchler has had ample occasion to confront serious objections. Rather than pack up his tent and seek greener pastures, as many scholars would have done (and perhaps should do in those cases where their arguments cannot pass muster), he dug in and formulated cogent responses that now fortify his armor. The result is a more complete set of arguments than probably would have ensued had he received a warm initial response.

Buchler persuasively demarcates the market trope's limitations, but he would do well to follow suit with his own employment trope. Actually, he would do well to recognize it as a trope in the first place. He insists repeatedly that elections are literally employment decisions; literalness comprises one of the primary grounds for preferring his employment model to the analogy-based market paradigm. But while an election technically may represent one kind of an employment decision—voters choose one applicant to fill a paid position—it is not identical to all employment decisions. In fact, elections are quite different from most employment decisions. For example, in most employment decisions, a single employer or hiring board would possess a trove of relevant information about the job candidates and would invest substantial energy in reviewing it. As I point out in my own work (and as Buchler recognizes, too), citizens seldom invest that kind of energy and attention politically. Some voters remain politically ignorant. Others may use heuristics to mimic informed voting. The point here is that while voters technically may represent a kind of employer, they seldom think and act exactly as traditional employers do.

Buchler knows the relevant literature and acknowledges that disparity. He knows, for example, that voters may make decisions based on partisan affiliation rather than candidate platform or officeholder performance. Yet he continues to insist that voters are only “similar to consumers,” as the market paradigms portrays them, “but they literally are employers” (p. 104), as if literalness entailed equivalency or sameness.

In philosophical terms, Buchler seems to be eliding the type–token distinction. Using type-token terminology, “employment decision” represents an overarching type or concept; “election” represents one of the many different tokens or instances that the type (concept) of employment decision encompasses. But no two tokens of a given type need be literally the same. Thus, even if “election” is a token or instance of the type or concept of “employment decision,” it might be (and in fact is) simply analogous to other tokens of that type. The employment model works by analogy between elections and other instances of employment decisions, not by literal equivalency. It comprises a trope, as do all analogies, and no trope can capture its subject's essence fully.

This distinction only tempers rather than undermines Buchler's essential points. His employment model might still represent a more apt election analogy than the market paradigm; his arguments certainly support that conclusion. His goal as a theorist should be to find and use the best analogy available for modeling elections while remaining aware of its limitations as a trope. Otherwise, he risks a version of the same mistake for which he criticizes others. When we take our tropes for granted, overlooking their status as metaphors or analogies rather than literal equivalencies, we may either overstate the extent of their usefulness and accuracy or else overlook other analogies that might—at least in certain circumstances—more closely parallel the relevant subject than our own model does. At that point we become fodder for the next round of revolutionaries.

Constructive criticism aside, my primary reaction involves admiration for Buchler's vision, courage, and patience. The market paradigm probably will not disappear any time soon, but the employment model should have a place at the table. And Buchler's message, pared down to essentials, should interest a much wider public as well. His model casts new light on hotly contested issues, such as term limits, campaign finance reform, and legislative redistricting. The wider public may not have a stake in linguistic analysis and academic debate, but we citizens should care about the best means of ensuring faithful performance from our representatives.