The ballot box promises that the ‘will of the people’ will be expressed, in the form of policies and mandates that closely reflect what the citizens want. But what if this ideal of democracy is now increasingly divorced from the reality? In this episode, I talk about how we really vote, including our inevitable irrationality and our attachment to social identity and what this means for the future of modern-day democracy.

Many ideas in this episode are inspired by Joseph Schumpeter’s 1942 book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy as well as Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels eye-opening book Democracy for Realists.