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‘Exit, Voice, and Loyalty’ Revisited: The Strategic Production and Consumption of Public and Private Goods

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Michael Laver
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Extract

In his recent review of Albert O. Hirschman's book Exit, Voice, and Loyalty Brian Barry suggested that the next step was ‘to look more systematically at ways in which exit and voice can be related, and to try and bring all the variables relevant to each kind of relationship into an explicit theoretical structure.’ This paper is an attempt to move in this direction by locating the concepts involved unequivocally within the so-called ‘economic’ or ‘rational choice’ paradigm. It is hoped that any resulting loss of richness will be more than compensated for by an increase in the internal consistency of the argument. It will be demonstrated that most of the logic of Exit, Voice, and Loyalty rests on ‘economic’ assumptions – Barry has already shown that where Hirschman departs from these his argument is at its weakest – and that making this reliance fully explicit not only increases the rigor of the approach but reorients some of the conclusions.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 6 , Issue 4 , October 1976 , pp. 463 - 482
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

1 Hirschman, Albert O., Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970).Google Scholar Further references to this work are incorporated in the text, the relevant page number being cited in brackets. Barry, Brian, ‘Review Article: “Exit, Voice, and Loyalty”’, British Journal of Political Science, iv (1974), 79–107, p. 106.Google Scholar

2 Throughout this paper, the specific theoretical concepts Exit. Voice and Loyalty will be written as proper nouns, to distinguish them from colloquial usage.

3 Olson, Mancur Jr., The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965).Google Scholar

4 Barry, . ‘Review Article’, p. 90.Google Scholar and Birch, A. H.. ‘Economic Models in Political Science: The Case of “Exit. Voice, and Loyalty”’. British Journal of Political Science, v (1975), 69–82.Google Scholar

5 Birch, . ‘Economic Models’, pp. 79–80.Google Scholar

6 Barry, . ‘Review Article’, p. 93.Google Scholar

7 Barry, . ‘Review Article’, p. 91.Google Scholar

8 An example of the latter would be Enoch Powell's vociferous resignation from his local (Wolverhampton South-west) Conservative Association over his disagreement with the party's attitude to the Common Market.

9 Birch, . ‘Economic Models’, pp. 76–7.Google Scholar

10 Barry, . ‘Review Article’, pp. 95–6.Google Scholar

11 Barry, . ‘Review Article’, p. 98.Google Scholar

12 Birch, . ‘Economic Models’, p. 75.Google Scholar

13 Hirschman, Albert O.. ‘“Exit. Voice, and Loyalty”: Further Reflections and a Survey of Recent Contributions’. Social Science Information, xiii (1974). 7–26.Google Scholar