Electoral participation in the Netherlands: Individual and contextual influences

Abstract Research into electoral participation has produced two traditions, one focusing mainly on individual level explanations while the second concentrates primarily on aggregate level explanations. By bringing these two research approaches together, we are not only able to explain individual electoral participation more thoroughly, but we also gain additional insight into the influence of aggregate level characteristics on individual behavior. We combine eight National Election Studies held in the Netherlands between 1971 and 1994 enabling us to study variation on the individual and the contextual (aggregate) level, including interactions between these two levels. Findings show that the addition of contextual characteristics form a significant improvement to an individual level model predicting electoral participation. Findings also confirm our expectation that the influence of individual characteristics such as education or political interest is dependent upon contextual characteristics describing for instance the salience of the election.     

Is the Effect of Education on Voter Turnout Absolute or Relative? A Multi-level Analysis of 37 Countries

While it is well established that education is positively correlated with voter turnout at the individual level, the increased educational levels in most western countries have not caused increased voter turnout at the aggregate level. The relative education model suggests one explanation: education is only a proxy for social status and has no direct causal effect. The individual-level effect of education is conditional on the level of education in the environment. Whereas previous research on the relationship between relative education and voter turnout has largely focused on the U.S. case, this article uses comparative survey data on voter turnout to test the relative education model. It combines data from the CSES and ESS covering about 275,000 individuals in 173 country-years in 37 countries. The analysis applies a definition of relative education operationalized as each individual's education rank position in relation to the level of education of those born in the same five-year cohort in the same country. The results show that relative education has a much larger effect on voter turnout than absolute education. Moreover, relative education has a stronger effect when aggregate turnout is low.     

Electoral participation in the Netherlands: Individual and contextual influences

Research into electoral participation has produced two traditions, one focusing mainly on individual level explanations while the second concentrates primarily on aggregate level explanations. By bringing these two research approaches together, we are not only able to explain individual electoral participation more thoroughly, but we also gain additional insight into the influence of aggregate level characteristics on individual behavior. We combine eight National Election Studies held in the Netherlands between 1971 and 1994 enabling us to study variation on the individual and the contextual (aggregate) level, including interactions between these two levels. Findings show that the addition of contextual characteristics form a significant improvement to an individual level model predicting electoral participation. Findings also confirm our expectation that the influence of individual characteristics such as education or political interest is dependent upon contextual characteristics describing for instance the salience of the election.     

Political Disagreement in Context: The Conditional Effect of Neighborhood Context, Disagreement and Political Talk on Electoral Participation

Despite scholarly interest in determining how exposure to disagreeable political ideas influences political participation, existing research supports few firm conclusions. This paper argues that these varied findings stem from an implicit model of contextual influence that fails to account for the indirect effect of aggregate social contexts. A model of contextual influence is outlined which implies that the neighborhood partisan context moderates the effect of political disagreement in social networks on campaign participation. The evidence shows that network disagreement demobilizes people who are the political minority in their neighborhood, but has no influence on people in the majority. When viewed together, these findings indicate that a person’s relationship to the broader political environment sets distinctive network processes in motion.

Modeling Political Efficacy and Interest Group Membership

Traditionally, political efficacy is measured at the individual level and studied as an individual level attribute in isolation from macro level events. In many studies, political efficacy is viewed as largely static, affected primarily by levels of income and education. If, however, an individual's feeling of efficacy is partly conditioned on macro level occurrences or expected macro level occurrences, then individual efficacy cannot be studied in isolation from the macro level context. In this article, I create a game theoretic, micro level foundation for macro level interest group behavior. I use a simple participation game to model a form of individual level political efficacy and detail the empirical implications of the hypothesized individual level behavior for the aggregate levels of group membership. The results suggest that empirical studies of the effects of political efficacy on collective efforts are susceptible to sampling and measurement problems.     

Revisiting the Political Theory of Party Identification

Recently, Lewis-Beck et al. (The American Voter Revisited, 2008b) re-created The American Voter using contemporary data. Although these scholars ultimately conclude that voters today behave in ways that are consistent with the account of voting behavior presented in The American Voter, their work nonetheless highlights the importance and value of re-examining past ideas. Given that Lewis-Beck et al. have re-tested the findings of The American Voter, it is both timely and worthwhile to re-examine Fiorina’s (Retrospective voting in American national elections, 1981) political theory of party identification, which is often seen as a critique of the theory of party identification presented in The American Voter, using newly available panel data. In this paper, I re-examine Fiorina’s (Retrospective voting in American national elections, 1981) political theory of party identification using data from the 2000–2002–2004 NES panel study. In addition to applying Fiorina’s approach to party identification to new data, as a more robust test of Fiorina’s theory, I develop a model of party identification where changes in party identification are modeled as a function of the actual changes in retrospective political evaluations. Overall, my findings are broadly consistent with the findings from Fiorina’s original model of party identification; however, my analysis suggests that the distribution of opinions in the electorate and elite signals may be important to changes in party identification.     

The Impact of Social Media Political Activists on Voting Patterns

This paper investigates how social media affects general voting patterns. Unlike previous studies investigating whether citizens’ use of social media affects political participation, this paper considers the connections that social media users have with political activists on social media, and how this connectedness influences general voting patterns, using data from Ghana. With contemporary theoretical perspectives and exploratory techniques, trends from past literature are presented, from a social media-based propagated survey with 420 valid responses. Structural equation modeling was used to test the conceptual model, which demonstrates that the connectedness with political and social media activists is significant and positively influences modifications in voting patterns. Online political participation and political affect also present an effect on voting patterns. The relationship between connections with social media political activists and online political participation is significant, as indicated by a strong covariance observed in the model. The results of the multigroup analysis also indicate some cultural and social issues to shape the phenomena for further investigation.

     

Education and Political Participation: Exploring the Causal Link

One of the most consistently documented relationships in the field of political behavior is the close association between educational attainment and political participation. Although most research assumes that this association arises because education causes participation, it could also arise because education proxies for the factors that lead to political engagement: the kinds of people who participate in politics may be the kinds of people who tend to stay in school. To test for a causal effect of education, we exploit the rise in education levels among males induced by the Vietnam draft. We find little reliable evidence that education induced by the draft significantly increases participation rates.     

The Electoral Relevance of Political Talk: Examining Disagreement and Expertise Effects in Social Networks on Political Participation

Although people with larger, more politicized social networks are more likely to participate in elections, we know very little about what drives this relationship. I argue that the electoral relevance of political talk depends heavily on the political expertise imbedded in discussion networks. Using data gathered during the 1996 presidential election, I demonstrate that the level of political sophistication in a person's social network exerts a positive influence on participation. Importantly, this effect is greater than the impact of political preferences in the network, the factor that is implicitly considered to be the main link between networks and involvement. This evidence makes two contributions to research on networks and participation. First, it provides support for a theoretical model that better accounts for research on the relationship between political talk, political disagreement, and involvement. Second, it changes the normative implications associated with political talk by suggesting that networks can encourage both higher levels of involvement and increased consideration of differing viewpoints.     

Consultants, depoliticization and arena-shifting in the policy process: privatizing water in Berlin

This paper examines the effects of the growing presence of management consultants in policy processes. In particular, it addresses the key concern that consultants employed by governments often operate in new institutional arrangements not subject to the formal rules of political systems. Their activities, often secretive, are seen to undermine the democratic legitimacy of political decision-making. Despite the significance of these concerns there is still a lack of conceptual and empirical research on these topics. Addressing this gap, the paper first seeks to begin a more conceptual discussion about the role of consultants and “governance”. Turning to the literature on depoliticization in public policy, and following Flinders and Buller (Br Polit 1(3):293–318, 2006), it is argued that the hiring of consultants should be seen not as a move from political to apparently neutral, expert forms of policy-making, but as a shift in the arena of political decision-making. Such shifts can contribute to the emergence of what Hajer (Policy Sci 36(2):175–195, 2003a) calls the “institutional voids” of governance: the emergence of ad hoc political spaces in which the rules and outcomes of policy-making are unclear. It is argued that these ad hoc spaces may work to undermine the traditional institutions of political systems without providing an alternative form of democratic legitimacy. The paper examines these issues with reference to a case study of consultants working for the Berlin government on the privatization of the Berlin Water Company in 1999. It concludes by reflecting on the usefulness of the arena-shifting notion and outlining areas for future research.     

Does Type of Education Affect Political Participation? Results from a Panel Survey of Swedish Adolescents

In several countries it is apparent that individuals with academic gymnasium (upper‐secondary) education show significantly higher levels of political participation than individuals with vocational education. However, previous research on this issue draws exclusively on one‐shot cross‐sectional data. This article utilizes a Swedish panel survey to gauge whether there is a direct causal link between type of education and political participation. Results demonstrate that differences in political participation are already present when students enter different types of education. The analyses show no significant effects of education; instead results support the education‐as‐a‐proxy view: pre‐adult factors predict political participation as well as educational choice.     

The Educational Correlates of Voting: A Cross‐sectional Study of Finnish Undergraduates’ Turnout in the 2014 European Parliament Election

Why do well‐educated citizens show high turnout in elections? Despite broad scholarly agreement that educational attainment predicts electoral participation, there is little consensus about which aspects of higher education account for this positive association. This study addresses this gap in the empirical literature by investigating the educational correlates of micro‐level turnout. To this end, the article first discuss two types of factors that prior research has suggested to connect higher education to voting: participation‐enhancing benefits; and the type of education. Using a unique, nationally representative survey of the 2012 cohort of Finnish undergraduates, the relative importance of and relationships between these competing factors in explaining the students’ intended voting in the 2014 European Parliament election are tested. It is found that turnout is positively associated with the student’s sense of political efficacy, which also mediates between an open classroom environment and turnout. Furthermore, students enrolled in the academic university track have stronger voting intentions – an effect that reflects their sense of civic duty. By contrast, no support is found for the effect of social network centrality. These results suggest that several, but not all, elements of higher education as discussed in the literature are relevant for electoral participation.     

Estimating the Impact of Education on Political Participation: Evidence from Monozygotic Twins in the United States,Denmark and Sweden

In this study we provide new evidence on the much-discussed effect of education on political participation by utilizing the quasi-experiment of twinning. By looking at the relationship between education and participation within monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs we are able to circumvent traditional sources of confounding of the relationship rooted in genes and early life family environment because MZ twins share both. The results of within-twin pair analyses based on surveys from the United States, Denmark and Sweden show that while the relationship between education and political participation is highly confounded by genes and/or familial environment in all three countries, a positive impact remains of years of education in the US and of high school completion in Denmark. No effect is found in Sweden. Robustness checks suggest that the observed effect is not confounded by within-twin pair differences in prenatal environment nor differential treatment during childhood, and, if anything, that it most likely constitutes a lower bound estimate.     

Personality and Turnout: Results from the Finnish Longitudinal Studies

Scholars in the field of electoral participation have for long been aware that turnout is strongly connected to sociopsychological variables such as religiosity, party identification, political interest and sense of political efficacy. The impact of personality characteristics has remained largely unexplored until recently. Based on the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development (JYLS, original N = 369), this article analyses the links between individuals' personality traits and their propensity to vote at ages 36, 42 and 50. The personality traits are measured by using the five‐factor model of personality consisting of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to experience. The results show both extraversion and agreeableness to be positively associated with electoral participation, but the findings are not consistent at all ages. Finally, the analysis suggests that the effect of extraversion varies depending on the level of education. Whereas well‐educated people are more prone to be habitual voters regardless of their level of extraversion, among less‐educated respondents it has a more sizeable effect.     

Democracy,Government Spending,and Economic Growth: A Political-Economic Explanation of the Barro-Effect

The paper develops a political economicargument for the recently observed inverseu-shaped relation between the level ofdemocracy and economic performance. A modelis constructed that shows why and howpolitical participation influences thespending behavior of opportunisticgovernments that can choose an optimalcombination of rents and public goods toattract political support. If the level ofdemocracy remains comparably low,governments rationally choose rents as aninstrument to assure political support.With increasing democratic participation,however, rents become an increasinglyexpensive instrument while the provision ofpublic goods becomes more and moreefficient in ensuring the incumbentgovernment's survival in power. As a consequence, an increase in democracy tends toraise growth rates of per capita income.However, the beneficial impact of democracyon growth holds true only for moderatedegrees of political participation. If –in semi-democratic countries – politicalparticipation increases further,governments have an incentive toover-invest in the provision of publicgoods. This model allows to derive and testthree hypothesis: Firstly, based on asimple endogenous growth model, weempirically substantiate our hypothesis ofa non-linear, inverse u-shaped relationbetween the level of democracy and growthof per capita income. Secondly, we showthat the impact of government spending oneconomic growth is higher in moredemocratic countries. Thirdly, wedemonstrate that the level of democracy andgovernment share of GDP are correlated in au-shaped manner.     

More Choice,Higher Turnout? The Impact of Consideration Set Size and Homogeneity on Political Participation

Central to the emerging scholarship on how political supply influences electoral behavior is the claim that more choice leads to higher turnout. However, empirical tests of this proposition have been limited to the aggregate level. This article examines the relationship between the properties of electoral choice sets, as perceived by the voters, and electoral participation. Following recent advances in choice research, the article distinguishes between an awareness set, consisting of all choice options known to the voter, and a consideration set which includes only those alternatives that are seriously considered by the voter. We hypothesize that the cardinality, ideological homogeneity and distinctiveness of individual consideration sets are positively associated with electoral participation. The expectation is tested with individual-level data from three waves of the European Elections Study. Our results suggest that the relationship between the structure of political supply and participation is complex: while the number of choice alternatives in the consideration set is positively associated with turnout, the ideological diversity of choice options suppresses electoral participation.     

Nonformal Education, Political Participation, and Democracy: Findings from Senegal

The relationship between nonformal education (NFE) and democracy has not been subject to empirical examination. Given the prominence that NFE has gained in many countries, such as those in Africa, this inattention is unfortunate. Using data from a survey involving a probability sample of 1484 Senegalese citizens, this paper examines the effects of education, both formal and nonformal, on political participation among rural Senegalese. The results indicate that NFE and formal education tend to have similar effects on several political behaviors, but the effect of NFE generally appears to be stronger. NFE has a positive impact on political participation. NFE increases the likelihood that one will vote and contact officials regarding community and personal problems. In addition, NFE has a strong, positive impact on community participation.Michelle T. Kuenzi, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Nevada Las Vegas, 4505 Maryland Pkwy, Box 455029, Las Vegas, NV 89154-5029, USA (michele.kuenzi@ccmail.nevada.edu)     

Mapping the production of political communications: a model to assist in understanding the relationships between the production and consumption of political messages

High public interest today in political communications such as ‘spin’ and in political participation such as electoral turnout suggests that there may be value in exploring the processes by which political messages are produced and consumed, and their inter‐relationship with participation. It may be that what citizen‐voters think of message production influences how they consume political news and publicity (through observing and evaluating), and that the propensity to political participation is subsequently affected. This paper offers a model which traces the production of political communications, starting at their origins in the political class, and flowing via traditional political journalism or controlled media and new media to citizen‐voters who both observe and evaluate them (ie consume them) before, during and after making any political choices. It is hypothesised that the observation and evaluation of message production and content by political consumers influences both their types and levels of participation. Research of this nature into political organisations is relatively rare. Similarly, there is little evidence of investigations into other aspects highlighted in the model: attitudes of the political class towards political communications, the production of political communications before they reach the media and how they are received by the media, and their consumption by citizen‐voters in relation to the propensity to participate in politics. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

It’s the weather, stupid! Individual participation in collective May Day demonstrations

We investigate the possible explanations for variations in aggregate levels of participation in large-scale political demonstrations. A simple public choice inspired model is applied to data derived from the annual May Day demonstrations of the Danish labor movement and socialist parties taking place in Copenhagen in the period 1980–2011. The most important explanatory variables are variations in the weather conditions and consumer confidence, while political and socio-economic conditions exhibit no robust effects. As such accidental or non-political factors may be much more important for collective political action than usually acknowledged and possibly make changes in aggregate levels of political support seem erratic and unpredictable.     

Voter Turnout in Norway: Time, Space, and Causality

This article focuses on diachronic and synchronic variation in Norwegian electoral turnout from 1945 to 1991. The model contains aggregate data divided into two-year intervals with regions as cross-sections. The impact of both socio-economic and political variables is tested. The two-dimensional view on turnout variation makes it possible to distinguish between short-term and long-term effects, as well as between national versus local factors. In contrast to related studies, this analysis actually tests for causality relationships between different political variables. The empirical results indicate that an increase in either national unemployment or regional income contributes to an increase in turnout rates. Electoral participation is also positively related to Labour support, industrial employment and strike activity.