<Emphasis Type="Italic">Sheldon S. Wolin:</Emphasis> Tocqueville between two worlds: The making of a political and theoretical life

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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Sheldon S. Wolin: Tocqueville between two worlds: The making of a political and theoretical life Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press 2001, 650 S., $ 24,95

     

Selbstentfesselung in kleinen Schritten? Deutschlands Außenpolitik zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts

Ohne Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag wurde bereits Anfang Januar 2003 abgeschlossen und konnte bis Mitte Februar nur noch geringfügig erg?nzt werden. Der Verfasser ist Herrn Fariborz Zelli, M.A., für seine Mithilfe bei der Vorbereitung dieses Essays zu gro?em Dank verpflichtet.     

Voting May Be Habit-Forming: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

Habit is a frequently mentioned but understudied cause of political action. This article provides the first direct test of the hypothesis that casting a ballot in one election increases one's propensity to go to the polls in the future. A field experiment involving 25,200 registered voters was conducted prior to the November general election of 1998. Subjects were randomly assigned to treatment conditions in which they were urged to vote through direct mail or face-to-face canvassing. Compared to a control group that received no contact, the treatment groups were significantly more likely to vote in 1998. The treatment groups were also significantly more likely to vote in local elections held in November of 1999. After deriving a statistical estimator to isolate the effect of habit, we find that, ceteris paribus, voting in one election substantially increases the likelihood of voting in the future. Indeed, the influence of past voting exceeds the effects of age and education reported in previous studies.