Why do 3,000 students queue up for 2,000 seats (which are never used, since students stand throughout the game)? Because the game is sold out (tickets on the “spot” market sell for $1,000 or more), it is always televised over both broadcast and cable networks. Students cite fun as the reason, but deeper probing reveals a nearly uniform response: “I want to go to show support for the team. I'll cheer them on!” In other words, they tent out for two weeks in freezing temperatures because they feel their support makes a difference. No individual student can believe s/he makes a difference, of course, since that person's seat would be taken by someone else, just as fanatical, if s/he stayed home. Furthermore, one voice has a negligible effect in the cauldron of noise that is Cameron Indoor Stadium on the night of battle. No one fan “matters” in any important respect, yet each student eagerly pays huge queuing costs for the chance to be there.

What does this have to do with voting in a political contest? In a way, that question in Alexander Schuessler's starting point in A Logic of Expressive Choice. He claims that “individuals often are motivated by a desire to express their tastes, or preferences, because such expression has direct influence on who they are—on their identity.” (p. 3) Schuessler's choice of title is interesting and gives an insight into his approach: He is proposing “a” possible logic of expressive choice, one that is different from, although not entirely opposed to, the more standard logic of collective action of rational choice theory.

Schuessler's goal is to give an internally consistent account of why a citizen might rationally (although not strategically) choose to express a preference in an election.

Schuessler (wisely) does not pretend to “resolve” the knotty paradox of participation. The argument rests, rather, on two key points. First, he claims that the paradox simply disappears when the problem is realistically considered. Participation is not a contribution to a public good, with the associated problems of free riding and underprovision. Rather, the public good is an outcome, which will occur with or without the voter's participation. The participation decision is then a choice by the voter: “I can, at the mere cost of participation, purchase for myself the status of outcome-producer” (p. 5, emphasis in original).

Second, Schuessler argues that methodological individualism is the appropriate starting point, but that this individualism should be conceived as ontological. More simply, campaigns are not a process of appealing to a preexistent and fixed set of preferences. Instead, the preferences being expressed by voters are the product of the campaign itself. An effective campaign, according to Schuessler, will focus on the “who” and “how many” dimensions of the electorate. The who aspect derives from the (potential) voter's perception of the candidate's standing among the rest of the electorate. The how many aspect is a product of beliefs about just which people, or groups, can be expected to offer support. The aggregation process implied here is much more of a macro (social) to micro (individual) process.

I expect that many traditional rational choice theorists will be profoundly uncomfortable with this approach, and not a few will reject it out of hand. That would be a mistake. Theoretical rational choice is, or should be, quite agnostic about the source of preferences. The notion that they might be determined endogeneously is not outlandish, particularly when the behavior in question is collective and social. Given the way that Schuessler specifies preferences, his citizens are perfectly rational.

Overall, this book is terrific. Unusually well-written, it offers many insights, large and small, into the voting choice and the nature of campaigns. It is this last point that may prove to be the book's lasting contribution; if voters behave as Schuessler claims, the very nature of the campaign will have to be rethought. This provocative and important book is a large first step toward directing that new thinking.