Anthony Downs

Anthony Downs was an American political scientist known for his contributions to rational choice theory. He argued that political behavior could be understood by assuming individuals rationally pursue their self-interest.

In his work An Economic Theory of Democracy (1957), Downs proposed that in democracies, the distribution of political opinions forms a bell curve, leading political parties to adopt centrist positions to appeal to the majority of moderate voters. This theory, which sometimes employed mathematical models, became a dominant school of thought in political science by the late 20th century, influencing the study of voting, legislation, and other political phenomena. Downs's work highlighted the importance of voter self-interest in shaping political outcomes.1