Intertemporal Choice and Democracy

Abstract

Intertemporal choice refers to how people weigh different outcomes happening at different times. It is called delay discounting in economics, future orientation in psychology, and patience in everyday life. In political science, the concept of intertemporal choice is widely discussed by political theorists and is formalized as a discounting factor in game theoretical models. Despite its theoretical importance, empirical examinations linking intertemporal choice and political behavior are scarce. Through representative surveys and survey experiments in the United States, Taiwan, and Ukraine, this dissertation first shows that intertemporal choice explains the rationality behind sociotropic voting; future-oriented people are much more likely to take into account the future impacts of current national economic changes. Second, patience reduces polarization between rich and poor people on redistributive policy by accounting for future social mobility. Third, patience can increase turnout only if voters perceived enough ideological difference between the candidates; otherwise, higher patience will decrease the willingness to vote. Fourth, intertemporal choice is key to understanding the mobilization in the risky mass protests. In the 2004 Ukraine Orange Revolution, future-oriented citizens were much likely to join the protest in the early stages. Finally, a country-level analysis shows that the average level of patience among citizens correlates with democratic consolidation. These results point to the importance of including the time dimension in the study of political behavior and show that democracy can be improved by extending patience among citizens.