부산대학교 도서관

This chapter focuses on the PPD’s decision-making logic when it surprised many by enacting a controversial law. They did this with clear knowledge that their party could suffer in the following elections. The decision in 1991 to support unilingualism seems to violate fundamental assumptions of rational behavior by political parties. Vote maximization, developed by Anthony Downs, is one of the foremost assumptions in the study of political parties and the PPD’s actions prior to the 1990s illustrate that it complied with these expectations. Indeed, the PPD leadership sidelined attempts to repeal the 1902 official bilingualism law precisely because their opponents would accuse them of moving towards independence – an electorally unpopular stance. The party’s decision to move ahead with proposal calls into question the applicability of rational choice models to Puerto Rico.