Considering that the whole population is utopically 100% informed about the available political parties it is expected that the true willingness of the people (majority) is acquainted in the democratic system. But unfortunately, the world is a messy playground tainted with uninformed and misinformed voters. The first question is: are uninformed people prone to vote for "change" blindly instead of considering gathering more information to make an assertive choice. The second one is: Does the 50%+ majority democracy premisse is valid if the assumptions on the first question are validated?
I have a methodological framework that might work quite well here. Nonetheless I would like to hear the opinion from people specialized in psychology and political sciences.
I would posit that this is likely. Mary Layton Atkinson's book, Combative Politics: The Media and Public Perceptions of Lawmaking, uses a mixed methods approach to test public perceptions after individuals read news articles covering US federal policymaking that are framed around conflict and heavy debate. The conclusion was that those who were exposed to conflict-focused articles were more likely to wane in their support for bills being debated and their trust in government likewise decreased.The effects were exacerbated among those who were less politically informed. Perhaps the most shocking conclusion was that Atkinson observed that this could occur regardless of the content of the bill to the point where those who would be most benefited by proposed legislation would oppose it if they perceived there was a lot of conflict and heated debate surrounding it. I would hypothesize that this effect could cause a lack of trust in government to develop to the point where individuals try to vote out the party in power, as you put it, "blindly instead of considering gathering more information to make an assertive choice".
In response to the second question, I'm aware of democratic organizations that require more than a simple majority for certain decisions. I have encountered Canadian student unions for instance where votes to impeach an elected official require 2/3 majorities or 50%+1 majorities of the entire voting population to initiate impeachment processes as opposed to just a simple majority of those who vote. These examples indicate that in some cases a simple majority is believed to not be enough.
Following. Readers may interest in the following question: https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_your_opinion_about_majority_in_voting
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Social Psychology
- Attitude