Moving Beyond Individuals: A Systemist Approach to Rational Choice Research on Voting

ABSTRACT This article aims to demonstrate the applicability of Mario Bunge's systemist approach in developing rational choice models of voting. Systemism implies the integration of individuals' micro‐motivations with systemic macro‐interactions in a single analytical framework, thus moving beyond the limitations of individualism and holism. The object of my analysis is Gordon Tullock's rational choice model of voting, developed and interpreted in accordance with the methodological directives of systemism. I first introduce parameters that measure the strength of social influence and the degree of susceptibility of voters to that influence into the model, and then evaluate the properties of the model by conducting agent‐based simulations in two types of networks: the Watts–Strogatz small‐world network and the Erdős–Rényi random network. The simulation results highlight the potential importance of environmental and structural determinants of voting decisions. A systemic analysis of the modified Tullock model, focusing on the composition, environment, structure and mechanism of the system, reveals numerous emergent properties that are irreducible to the characteristics of individual voters. The systemist approach increases the explanatory potential of rational choice models of voting, provides a basis for partially resolving the paradox of voting and offers empirically testable hypotheses. Extending the analysis to include the structural‐relational context may also be important from a practical point of view, for example, in anticipating the consequences of institutional change and the impact of get‐out‐the‐vote campaigns.