In a popular government such as a democracy or a liberal republic, several factors may affect which individuals are favored by the process of political selection:

1. The degree of consistency between a politician's policies (or proposed policies) and the policies favored by the majority of voters.

2. The degree of understanding of moral/political principles among voters. Factors such as widespread concrete-bound thinking, susceptibility to the fallacy of political reductionism, or familiarity with the principles of human action will strongly affect the behavior of voters; such factors should be considered in conjunction with all other items in this list.

3. The relative visibility of the beneficial and adverse effects of a politician's policies. We refer here to their visibility as effects: that is, a causal connection should be evident. For example, suppose that a certain policy results in unemployment, but the politician can convince the voters that the unemployment is instead caused by an inherent defect in the market system. Then unemployment, although widely recognized, cannot be considered a highly visible effect of the policy for purposes of political selection.     

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