HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Foot voting is expressing one's preferences through one's actions, by voluntarily participating in or withdrawing from an activity, group, or process; especially, physical migration to leave a situation one does not like, or to move to a situation one regards as more beneficial. People who engage in foot voting are said to "vote with their feet". Legal scholar
Ilya Somin Ilya Somin (born 1973) is a law professor at George Mason University, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, a blogger for the Volokh Conspiracy, and a former co-editor of the '' Supreme Court Economic Review'' (2006–2013). His research focu ...
has described foot voting as "a tool for enhancing political freedom: the ability of the people to choose the political regime under which they wish to live". Communist leader
Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
commented, "They voted with their feet," regarding Russian soldiers deserting the army of the
Tsar Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East Slavs, East and South Slavs, South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''Caesar (title), caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" i ...
. The concept has also been associated with
Charles Tiebout Charles Mills Tiebout ( "TEE-bow") (1924–1968) was an American economist and geographer most known for his development of the Tiebout model, which suggested that there were actually non-political solutions to the free rider problem in local gov ...
, who pioneered the concept (although he did not use the ''term'' "foot voting") in a 1956 paper, and with
Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
, who advocated migration between states of the United States as a solution to unsatisfactory local conditions.


Law and politics

Legal scholar
Ilya Somin Ilya Somin (born 1973) is a law professor at George Mason University, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, a blogger for the Volokh Conspiracy, and a former co-editor of the '' Supreme Court Economic Review'' (2006–2013). His research focu ...
has argued that foot voting requires far less information (on the part of the citizens engaging in it) to be exercised effectively than does literal voting at the ballot box; that foot voters are more strongly motivated to acquire relevant information than are ballot-box voters; and that decentralized federalism promotes the welfare of citizens because it facilitates foot voting. Somin has also used foot voting to make a case for changes in
international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
to allow easier migration across international
border Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders c ...
s. Legal scholars Roderick M. Hills, Jr., and Shitong Qiao have used China as a case study to argue that foot voting is ineffective unless meaningful ballot-box voting is also in place. Somin has rebutted this critique.


Culture

Models from theoretical biology have been applied to elucidate the causal relationships between foot voting and the dissemination of human cultural characteristics.


Examples


United States

One of the clearest examples of foot voting is the mass exodus of movers out of
California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
to other states. In 2020, 650,000 people left California, a net loss of 135,000 people. Some of the motivations spurring people to move out of California and to other states are the pursuit of lower taxes, more affordable housing, and fewer regulations on businesses. Conversely, an example of a movement of people moving to a place rather than from a place is the
Free State Project The Free State Project (FSP) is an American political migration movement founded in 2001 to recruit at least 20,000 libertarians to move to a single low-population state (New Hampshire was selected in 2003) in order to make the state a stronghold ...
. The Free State Project (FSP) is an American political migration movement founded in 2001 to recruit at least 20,000
libertarians Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and Minarchism, minimize the ...
to move to a single low-population state (
New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...
, was selected in 2003) in order to make the state a stronghold for libertarian ideas. By concentrating on a single state rather than being dispersed over several states, libertarians have seen a lot of electoral wins in New Hampshire. For example, 150 representatives in the NH state house were ranked as an A- or above by the
New Hampshire Liberty Alliance The New Hampshire Liberty Alliance (NHLA) is a nonpartisan, libertarian coalition in New Hampshire. The organization supports libertarian candidates for state and local offices, and other libertarian causes and organizations. Just before the N ...
in 2021. As of March of 2022, approximately 6,232 participants have moved to New Hampshire for the Free State Project.


See also

*
Dollar voting Dollar voting is an analogy that refers to the theoretical impact of consumer choice on producers' actions by means of the flow of consumer payments to producers for their goods and services. Overview In some principles-of-economics textbooks of ...
* ''
Exit, Voice, and Loyalty ''Exit, Voice, and Loyalty'' (1970) is a treatise written by Albert O. Hirschman. The work hinges on a conceptual ultimatum that confronts consumers in the face of deteriorating quality of goods: either ''exit'' or ''voice''. The book has been d ...
'' *
Free State Project The Free State Project (FSP) is an American political migration movement founded in 2001 to recruit at least 20,000 libertarians to move to a single low-population state (New Hampshire was selected in 2003) in order to make the state a stronghold ...
* Human capital flight *
Jurisdiction shopping Jurisdictional arbitrage is the practice of taking advantage of discrepancies between competing legal jurisdictions. It takes its name from arbitrage, the practice in finance of purchasing a good at a lower price in one market and selling it at a h ...
*
Panarchism Panarchy may refer to: * Panarchy (Dartmouth), student society at Dartmouth College * Panarchy (ecology) A social-ecological system consists of 'a bio-geo-physical' unit and its associated social actors and institutions. Social-ecological system ...
*
Revealed preference Revealed preference theory, pioneered by economist Paul Anthony Samuelson in 1938, is a method of analyzing choices made by individuals, mostly used for comparing the influence of policies on consumer behavior. Revealed preference models assume t ...
*
Tiebout model The Tiebout model, also known as Tiebout sorting, Tiebout migration, or Tiebout hypothesis, is a positive political theory model first described by economist Charles Tiebout in his article "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures" (1956). The essence ...
*
Freedom of movement Freedom of movement, mobility rights, or the right to travel is a human rights concept encompassing the right of individuals to travel from place to place within the territory of a country,Jérémiee Gilbert, ''Nomadic Peoples and Human Rights' ...
* Illegal emigration * Republikflucht


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Foot Voting Voting theory Psephology Internal migration