We address the issue of electromagnetic pulsar spindown by combining our experience from the two limiting idealized cases which have been studied in great extent in the past : that of an aligned rotator where ideal MHD conditions apply , and that of a misaligned rotator in vacuum .
We construct a spindown formula that takes into account the misalignment of the magnetic and rotation axes , and the magnetospheric particle acceleration gaps .
We show that near the death line aligned rotators spin down much slower than orthogonal ones .
In order to test this approach , we use a simple Monte Carlo method to simulate the evolution of pulsars and find a good fit to the observed pulsar distribution in the P - \dot { P } diagram without invoking magnetic field decay .
Our model may also account for individual pulsars spinning down with braking index n < 3 , by allowing the corotating part of the magnetosphere to end inside the light cylinder .
We discuss the role of magnetic reconnection in determining the pulsar braking index .
We show , however , that n \sim 3 remains a good approximation for the pulsar population as a whole .
Moreover , we predict that pulsars near the death line have braking index values n > 3 , and that the older pulsar population has preferentially smaller magnetic inclination angles .
We discuss possible signatures of such alignment in the existing pulsar data .