The Importance of Political Context for Understanding Civic Engagement: A Longitudinal Analysis

We contend that political context is important to consider when analyzing social capital and that context has an important but neglected impact on understanding the consequences of civic activity. Our focus is on the influence of rural, local leadership in two Minnesota communities and policies that these elites have developed to bring Internet connectivity to their citizens. One city developed a community electronic network and the other opted for an individualistic, entrepreneurial approach to information technology. Using a quasi-experimental research design and four-wave panel data, we find that elite policy approaches interact with civic activity to predict technology use among citizens, even long after the policies’ initial implementation. In the city with a community network, residents who are integrated into civic life are able to harness these political resources to become more technologically sophisticated.

Political Socialization in Context: The Effect of Political Competition on Youth Voter Turnout

Adolescence is an important time for political development. Researchers have concentrated on the family as the sole socializing agent of youths; however, as Campbell, Gimpel, and others have shown, political contexts also matter for young citizens. Using the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, the Record of American Democracy, and election outcomes data, I find that adolescents who resided in politically competitive locales or states have higher turnout years later compared to those who lived in uncompetitive contexts. These effects are not mediated by the home political environment and act through political socialization. This research adds to a growing literature on the influence of political contexts on political behavior and is the first to explore how political competition during adolescence influences voter turnout in young adulthood.

Civic Engagement and Education: An Empirical Test of the Sorting Model

According to the sorting model of education, the impact of education on civic engagement is relative, rather than absolute. Education correlates with greater engagement because it is a marker of social status; the degree of status conferred by your level of education is determined by the average level of education within your environment. This article tests the sorting model by paying strict heed to its assumptions. The analysis confirms the model, but considerably narrows its reach. Sorting applies only to one particular type (electoral activity), only when the educational environment accounts for variation across age and place, and only when one models the interactive relationship between education at the individual and environmental levels. Furthermore, sorting applies more to men than women. The same analytical framework demonstrates that being in a more highly educated environment amplifies the relationship between education and democratic enlightenment (political knowledge and tolerance).     

Local Capitalism and Civic Engagement: The Potential of Locally Facing Firms

The twin forces of globalization and devolution have created administrative circumstances that strain the problem‐solving capacity of local governments and increase the importance of nongovernmental processes and institutions. The literature suggests that locally owned firms are more likely to engender higher levels of civic engagement critical to buttressing that problem‐solving capacity. This research adds an additional dimension, investigating to whom those firms sell and through which supply channels. Using survey results from hundreds of local firms across five study sites, this research demonstrates that locally facing firms—that is, firms that intentionally interface with community members and other local businesses—are associated with greater levels of civic and political engagement compared with locally owned firms that sell their products to customers elsewhere. Findings suggest that local governments should look beyond the local/nonlocal ownership binary to consider how private firms can be partners in serving and supporting their communities.     

The MISSING LINK: Exploring the Relationship Between Higher Education and Political Engagement

Empirical political behavior research has consistently observed a robust and positive relationship between education and political engagement, but has failed to adequately explain why education is so important. Using data from the Baccalaureate and Beyond (B&B) Longitudinal Study, I test three competing hypotheses explaining the enduring link between higher education and political behavior. I find that a verbal SAT scores and a social science curriculum are related to future political engagement, suggesting that the content of higher education, especially a curriculum that develops language and civic skills, is influential in shaping participation in American democracy. Analysis for this article relied on restricted-use data from the National Center for Education Statistics. Application procedures for obtaining an NCES restricted data license to access theBaccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study are available at http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/b&b/. Replication code and supplemental variables (including school quality) are available onthe authors website.     

Political Participation and Civic Courage: The Negative Effect of Transparency on Making Small Campaign Contributions

This study assesses whether public disclosure of campaign contributions affects citizens’ willingness to give money to candidates. In the American states, campaign finance laws require disclosure of private information for contributors at relatively low thresholds ranging from $1 to $300. The Internet has made it relatively easy to publicize such information in a way that changes the social context for political participation. Drawing on social influence theory, the analysis suggests that citizens are sensitive to divulging private information, especially those who are surrounded by people with different political views. Using experimental data from the 2011 Cooperative Congressional Election Studies, it demonstrates how individuals refrain from making small campaign contributions or reduce their donations to avoid disclosing their identities. The conclusion discusses the implications of transparency laws for political participation, especially for small donors.     

Managerial Ambivalence and Electronic Civic Engagement: The Role of Public Manager Beliefs and Perceived Needs

This article addresses an important yet often neglected component of electronic civic engagement efforts: managerial ambivalence about public participation. We examine how managers’ beliefs about public participation and their perceived needs for participation in agency decision making work together to shape electronic engagement efforts. Based on observational data collected in 2010 and 2014 and data from a 2014 survey of managers in 500 U.S. municipal governments, we find that managerial beliefs about participation and their perceived needs for participation are two valid and separate constructs. There is a positive relationship between managerial beliefs and electronic engagement. Perceived needs for participation interact with managers’ beliefs to affect electronic civic engagement. A high level of perceived needs for participation reinforces the effect of managerial beliefs on electronic engagement efforts, but a low level does not offset the effect of managerial beliefs on electronic engagement.     

How Trust Matters: The Changing Political Relevance of Political Trust

Americans most often think about government in terms of its ability to grapple with issues of redistribution and race. However, the September 11 terrorist attacks led to a massive increase in media attention to foreign affairs, which caused people to think about the government in terms of defense and foreign policy. We demonstrate that such changes in issue salience alter the policy preferences that political trust shapes. Specifically, we show that trust did not affect attitudes about the race‐targeted programs in 2004 as it usually does, but instead affected a range of foreign policy and national defense preferences. By merging survey data gathered from 1980 through 2004 with data from media content analyses, we show that, more generally, trust's effects on defense and racial policy preferences, respectively, increase as the media focus more attention in these areas and decrease when that attention ebbs.     

Fired Up,Ready to Go: The Impact of Age,Campaign Enthusiasm,and Civic Duty on African American Voting

Political Behavior - Does the decision to vote signify that African Americans are “fired up” (i.e., that they are excited about the election), or is it a function of Blacks’...     

The Rise and Fall of Political Engagement among Latinos: The Role of Identity and Perceptions of Discrimination

This study analyzes how perceptions of discrimination against oneself and/or one’s group and whether one self-identifies in national (American), national origin, or panethnic terms affect levels of political engagement among Latinos in the United States. The findings show that perceptions of discrimination against oneself are particularly damaging in that they promote both behavioral and attitudinal alienation (e.g., non-voting and lack of trust), especially among Latinos who identify primarily as American. Behavioral alienation can be mitigated, and even overcome, when perceptions of discrimination are accompanied by a panethnic or national origin self-identification. However, the attitudinal alienation created by perceptions of discrimination is not mitigated by any type of self-identification. These findings shed light on understudied factors that affect political engagement that are going to become more important to understand as the American population continues its ethnic diversification. In addition to expanding our knowledge of political engagement generally, this study also raises important questions about whether the adoption of an American self-identification is in fact beneficial for the health of our participatory political system as a whole.     

Civic Education,Political Discussion,and the Social Transmission of Democratic Knowledge and Values in a New Democracy: Kenya 2002

How does civic education affect the development of democratic political culture in new democracies? Using a unique three‐wave panel data set from Kenya spanning the transitional democratic election of 2002, we posit a two‐step process of the social transmission of democratic knowledge, norms, and values. Civic education first affected the knowledge, values, and participatory inclinations of individuals directly exposed to the Kenyan National Civic Education Programme (NCEP). These individuals became opinion leaders, communicating these new orientations to others within their social networks. Individuals who discussed others’ civic education experiences then showed significant growth in democratic knowledge and values, in many instances more than individuals with direct exposure to the program. We find further evidence of a “compensation effect,” such that the impact of civic education and post‐civic education discussion was greater among Kenyans with less education and with lower levels of social integration.     

The Effect of Political Competition on Democratic Accountability

Representing uncompetitive, homogeneous constituencies is increasingly the norm for American legislators. Extensive research has investigated how competition affects the way representatives respond to their constituents’ policy preferences. This paper explores competition’s effect on the other side of representation, how constituents respond to their legislators’ policy record. Combining multiple measures of state competitiveness with large-N survey data, I demonstrate that competition enhances democratic accountability. Voters in competitive states are more interested in politics, more aware of the policy positions their U.S. senators have taken, and more likely to hold them accountable for those positions at election time. Robustness checks show that these effects are not due to the intensity of campaigning in a state: general competition, not particular campaign activities, drives citizens’ response. The recent increase in uncompetitive constituencies has likely lessened the degree to which legislators are held accountable for their actions in office.