A few years ago, I came across Albert Hirschman's book Exit, Voice, and Loyalty which described what he saw as the three primary responses one can take when faced with goods and services that declined in quality. Being an economist, Hirschman drew upon several examples of how these three decisions continually impact markets, politics, emigrations, and many other contentious relationships around the world.

The premise is simple: when faced with a relationship that has declined in quality, you have three primary options to take: you can either make your objections known in hopes of improving the situation (voice), you can end the relationship in hopes of finding a better alternative that meets what you're looking for (exit), or you can remain idle and accept the deterioration as it stands (loyalty, or more fittingly complacency).

You can see this in many types of relationships between nearly any two entities. For example, the connection can be between a government and its citizens, a company and its customers, a manager and their employees, a recruiter and their candidates, or a parent and their children. And the declining good or service may be a policy that affects its citizens adversely, an interaction an employee/candidate finds distasteful, or a product that no longer satisfies a consumer's needs.

Although those were all hierarchical examples where one entity can be seen as having more authority than the other, there doesn’t have to be a hierarchy to use the framework. EVC can also be useful in thinking about how nations collaborate with other nations, how companies do business with other companies, and even how friends resolve issues with other friends.

What’s interesting is how often we have to switch between these three choices, and what they exactly look like in each circumstance. Opportunities for each option aren’t always available either. For complicated matters where a single decision won’t suffice, we often have to choose when and how to use voice, when and how to exit, and even when and how to accept or wait.

But in election years such as this one, the opportunity to use our voice is obvious. Regardless of the outcome, submitting our ballots is still one of the best ways to evoke change in the government that was created to serve us.