Foot voting is expressing one's preferences through one's actions, by voluntarily participating in or withdrawing from an activity, group, or process; especially, physical migration to leave a situation one does not like, or to move to a situation one regards as more beneficial. People who engage in foot voting are said to "vote with their feet".[1]
Legal scholar Ilya Somin has described foot voting as "a tool for enhancing political freedom: the ability of the people to choose the political regime under which they wish to live".[2] Communist leader Vladimir Lenin commented, "They voted with their feet," regarding Russian soldiers deserting the army of the Tsar.[3] The concept has also been associated with Charles Tiebout, who pioneered the concept (although he did not use the term "foot voting") in a 1956 paper,[4][5]: 203 and with Ronald Reagan, who advocated migration between states of the United States as a solution to unsatisfactory local conditions.[6][7]
- ^ Lynch, Casey R. (2017). ""Vote with your feet": Neoliberalism, the democratic nation-state, and utopian enclave libertarianism". Political Geography. 59: 82–91. doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.03.005. hdl:10150/625948.
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