Against a voiceless world: Albert O. Hirschman’s political economics as an alternative to public choice[En contra de un mundo sin voz: la economía política de Albert O. Hirschman como alternativa a la teoría de la elección pública]

This article analyzes the contributions of Albert O. Hirschman to the field of political economy and his issues with public choice. Although he was not explicitly affiliated to any school of thought, Hirschman worked with both disciplines of economics and political science to understand questions such as “why do people vote and participate in politics?” He was disappointed with what mainstream economics provided and elaborated the exit-voice-loyalty (EVL) model to understand mechanisms of action in politics and the economy. His EVL model has been widely read, but it did not develop a paradigm around it and was ignored by economists due to its lack of formal models. His work was thus at odds with public choice theory. He also criticized the concept of free-riding and the application of rational choice theory to politics. Hirschman went on to work on a political economy of citizenship in his works (Hirschman, 1977, [1982] 2002, 1991), to find answers apart from rational choice theory, which he considered harmful to political participation.