Spanning Exit and Voice: Albert Hirschman's Contribution to Political Science

Abstract

The paper reviews the contribution of Hirschman’s Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (EVL) to research in political science. The argument is the framework of exit and voice offers greater understanding of a range trade-offs that exist in politics, in particular over collective action and citizen responses to dissatisfaction, which have implications for institutional design as well as for the functioning of democratic processes. The paper summarises the EVL model and discusses how it may be elaborated. The main part of the paper reviews applications to research literatures on political participation, responses to oppressive regimes, political party and interest group membership, and reports a number of formal treatments. Overall, the applications have been useful and illuminated a number of research problems, but overall they are modest in their impact in political science. The paper suggests the potential range of impacts could be much greater as EVL can show how individual choices are made in politics and are constrained by its institutions.

Keywords: Hirschman, exit, voice, loyalty, political science