To be on the Winning Side

The paradox of voting and strategic voting can be explained by the concept of ’casual responsibility’ in voting, as proposed by Goldman (Soc Philos Policy 16(2):201–217, 1999) This concept suggests that a voter feels ‘responsible’ for the candidate she votes for, even if her vote is not decisive. I present a formal model that is inspired by this theory. The model assumes that a voter’s utility from a winning candidate is higher if she votes for him, and lower if she votes for a candidate she dislikes. This model effectively explains the paradox of voting and the occurrence of strategic voting, even when the additional utility of ’being on the side of the winner’ is negligible.