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.

A Comparative Analysis of Political Communication Systems and Voter Turnout

This article explores how political communication institutions affect cross-national differences in voter turnout in democratic elections. It demonstrates how the structure and means of conveying political messages—gauged by media systems, access to paid political television advertising, and campaign finance laws—explain variations in turnout across 74 countries. Relying on a "mobilization" perspective, I argue that institutional settings that reduce information costs for voters will increase turnout. The major empirical findings are twofold. First, campaign finance systems that allow more money (and electioneering communication) to enter election campaigns are associated with higher levels of voter turnout. Second, broadcasting systems and access to paid political television advertising explain cross-national variation in turnout, but their effects are more complex than initially expected. While public broadcasting clearly promotes higher levels of turnout, it also modifies the effect of paid advertising access on turnout.     

Electoral Participation in Pursuit of Policy Representation: Ideological Congruence and Voter Turnout

In this article, we examine whether lack of ideological congruence with the viable party options discourages turnout, and under which conditions. We conceive congruence from the perspective of the individual citizen, and, drawing on policy-based arguments for non-voting, we hypothesize that: having no party in the political menu sharing similar views should especially reduce turnout of citizens holding extremist views and that this effect would be greatest in proportional electoral systems. Relying on data collected by the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), we show that lack of congruence with the electoral menu reduces extremists’ turnout and does so particularly in PR systems.     

Death and Turnout: The Human Costs of War and Voter Participation in Democracies

War heightens public interest in politics, especially when human lives are lost. We examine whether, and how, combat casualties affect the decision to vote in established democracies. Drawing from social psychology research on mortality salience, we expect increasing casualties to increase the salience of death, information that moves people to defend their worldview, especially nationalistic and ideological values. By heightening the importance of values, we propose that combat casualties increase the benefits of voting. In particular, we expect the effect of combat casualties to be pronounced among the least politically engaged. Using both cross‐national data of elections in 23 democracies over a 50‐year period and survey data from the United States and United Kingdom during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, we found that mounting casualties increase turnout. Furthermore, as expected, we found the effect of casualties to be most pronounced among those least interested in politics.     

Public Opinion Polls,Voter Turnout,and Welfare: An Experimental Study

We experimentally study the impact of public opinion poll releases on voter turnout and welfare in a participation game. We find higher overall turnout rates when polls inform the electorate about the levels of support for the candidates than when polls are prohibited. Distinguishing between allied and floating voters, our data show that this increase in turnout is entirely due to floating voters. When polls indicate equal levels of support for the candidates, turnout is high and welfare is low (compared to the situation without polls). In contrast, when polls reveal more unequal levels of support, turnout is lower with than without this information, while the effect of polls on welfare is nonnegative. Finally, many of our results are well predicted by quantal response (logit) equilibrium.     

Using Experiments to Estimate the Effects of Education on Voter Turnout

The powerful relationship between education and voter turnout is arguably the most well-documented and robust finding in American survey research. Yet the causal interpretation of this relationship remains controversial, with many authors suggesting that the apparent link between education and turnout is spurious. In contrast to previous work, which has relied on observational data to assess the effect of education on voter turnout, this article analyzes two randomized experiments and one quasi-experiment in which educational attainment was altered exogenously. We track the children in these experiments over the long term, examining their voting rates as adults. In all three studies, we find that exogenously induced changes in high school graduation rates have powerful effects on voter turnout rates. These results imply that the correlation between education and turnout is indeed causal. We discuss some of the pathways by which education may transmit its influence.     

Voter Partisanship and the Effect of Distributive Spending on Political Participation

Do distributive benefits increase voter participation? This article argues that the government delivery of distributive aid increases the incumbent party's turnout but decreases opposition‐party turnout. The theoretical intuition here is that an incumbent who delivers distributive benefits to the opposing party's voters partially mitigates these voters’ ideological opposition to the incumbent, hence weakening their motivation to turn out and oust the incumbent. Analysis of individual‐level data on FEMA hurricane disaster aid awards in Florida, linked with voter‐turnout records from the 2002 (pre‐hurricane) and 2004 (post‐hurricane) elections, corroborates these predictions. Furthermore, the timing of the FEMA aid delivery determines its effect: aid delivered during the week just before the November 2004 election had especially large effects on voters, increasing the probability of Republican (incumbent party) turnout by 5.1% and decreasing Democratic (opposition party) turnout by 3.1%. But aid delivered immediately after the election had no effect on Election Day turnout.     

The Bipolar Voter: On the Effects of Actual and Perceived Party Polarization on Voter Turnout in European Multiparty Democracies

Despite the growing literature on polarization, students of comparative politics have not yet been able to reach much assured understanding of how party polarization influences voter turnout in multiparty settings, which often put on offer both centrist, and divergent mainstream and niche party policies. I evaluate how politically sophisticated and unsophisticated citizens with different ideological preferences respond to high and increasing party polarization by employing individual- and party system-level data from 17 European multiparty democracies. I hypothesize that high levels of actual and perceived party polarization increase voter turnout, and policy seeking, sophisticated citizens are more likely to turn out when polarization in party policy offerings in the short run increases their utility from voting. The empirical analyses show that high party polarization increases both politically sophisticated and unsophisticated citizens’ propensities to turn out. However, such positive effect for the most part comes from the between- and within-party systems differences in actual party polarization, rather than how individual citizens perceive that. The implications of these findings with respect to strategic position taking incentives of political parties and the effects of the knowledge gap between sophisticated and unsophisticated citizens on political participation and democratic representation are discussed in the concluding section.     

The Effect of Information on Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Do better‐informed people vote more? Recent formal theories of voter turnout emphasize a positive effect of being informed on the propensity to vote, but the possibility of endogenous information acquisition makes estimation of causal effects difficult. I estimate the causal effects of being informed on voter turnout using unique data from a natural experiment Copenhagen referendum on decentralization. Four of fifteen districts carried out a pilot project, exogenously making pilot city district voters more informed about the effects of decentralization. Empirical estimates based on survey data confirm a sizeable and statistically significant causal effect of being informed on the propensity to vote.     

The Introduction of Voter Registration and Its Effect on Turnout

David M. Konisky Department of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room E53-386, Cambridge, MA 02139 e-mail: sda{at}mit.edu e-mail: konisky{at}mit.edu (corresponding author) Studies of voter turnout across states find that those withmore facilitative registration laws have higher turnout rates.Eliminating registration barriers altogether is estimated toraise voter participation rates by up to 10%. This article presentspanel estimates of the effects of introducing registration thatexploits changes in registration laws and turnout within states.New York and Ohio imposed registration requirements on all oftheir counties in 1965 and 1977, respectively. We find thatthe introduction of registration to counties that did not previouslyrequire registration decreased participation over the long termby three to five percentage points. Though significant, thisis lower than estimates of the effects of registration fromcross-sectional studies and suggests that expectations aboutthe effects of registration reforms on turnout may be overstated.     

Radio Public Service Announcements and Voter Participation Among Native Americans: Evidence from Two Field Experiments

Although similar to other U.S. minorities in terms of socio-economic status and political interest, Native Americans are more dispersed geographically and much less likely to vote. This pattern suggests that at least part of the disparity in turnout might be due to Native Americans’ lower exposure to statewide and national mobilization campaigns. To test this idea, a randomized experiment was conducted in order to evaluate the effectiveness of a radio campaign that encouraged Native Americans to vote. In 2008 and 2010, experiments were conducted across a total of 85 radio markets spanning more than a dozen states. Results suggest that this nonpartisan radio campaign increased turnout among registered Native American voters in both elections, although the estimated effects fall short of conventional levels of statistical significance.     

Immigrant-Serving Non-profit Voter Mobilization in Off-Cycle Elections: An Institutional Explanation of Differential Political Participation Patterns

Abstract

Immigrants in the USA tend to vote less than other groups, and immigrants vote at even lower levels during off-cycle elections. The aim of this article is to analyse whether these same patterns can be observed in the electoral activities of non-profit organizations that represent immigrants. I argue for a theory of reflective non-profit representation to explain how immigrant-serving organizations make decisions about electoral activities. By analysing original survey data collected in 2012 and 2013, the article finds that immigrant-serving non-profits are less likely to mobilize immigrants in off-cycle compared to on-cycle elections, and less likely to mobilize voters than organizations serving other communities. These findings suggest that immigrant voting could increase if non-profits increased their political involvement, reimagined their identities to include politics as a part of their mission, and generated new revenues to support these activities.     

Patience as a Political Virtue: Delayed Gratification and Turnout

A number of scholars have demonstrated that voter turnout is influenced by the costs of processing information and going to the polls, and the policy benefits associated with the outcome of the election. However, no one has yet noted that the costs of voting are paid on or before Election Day, while policy benefits may not materialize until several days, months, or even years later. Since the costs of voting must be borne before the benefits are realized, people who are more patient should be more willing to vote. We use a “choice game” from experimental economics to estimate individual discount factors which are used to measure patience. We then show that patience significantly increases voter turnout.

Explaining Social Class Inequality in Voter Turnout: The Contribution of Income and Health

Occupation‐based social class is an important, yet under‐explored, factor in electoral participation. In this article, social class differences in voter turnout over time are measured, and how two other resources – namely income and health – mediate or modify this relationship is analysed. The analysis is based on an individual‐level register‐based 11 percent sample of the entire electorate in the 1999 Finnish parliamentary elections, and secondarily on smaller register‐based samples in the 2012 presidential and municipal elections. Results show that income mediates part of the effects of social class on voting, while social class and utilised health indicators exert mainly independent effects on turnout. Social class differences remain largely stable in all income and hospital care groups, except that no differences between classes are observed among those most severely affected by health problems. Results are also mostly similar between those of working age and the older population, and between men and women, and remain stable over time and in different types of elections. The findings imply that social class should be taken account in theoretical and empirical models of turnout.     

The Effect of Voting Technology on Voter Turnout: Do Computers Scare the Elderly?

In the aftermath of the Florida debacle in the 2000 Presidential election, there has been an emphasis on replacing voting equipment perceived as inferior (e.g., punch card ballots) with more technologically advanced voting methods. It is possible, however, that not all voters will be comfortable with high-tech voting devices. Elderly voters, for example, might be familiar with the old voting machines but apprehensive about computerized voting. If this is the case, the fear of new voting technology might cause the turnout of elderly voters to decrease. We test for this effect by analyzing the change in voter turnout across Georgia counties in the two most recent gubernatorial elections, as it relates to the share of the counties’ populations that is over the age of 65 years. Consistent with the hypothesis that computers scare the elderly, we find a significantly negative relationship between the change in voter turnout and the elderly share of the population. An additional 1% of the population that is elderly is associated with a 0.3–0.4% decrease in turnout. The hypothesis that elderly voters were apprehensive about the change in voting technology is also supported by the increase in absentee balloting.     

Concurrent Elections and Voter Turnout: The Effect of the De-linking of State Elections on Electoral Participation in India's Parliamentary Polls, 1971–2004

This article examines the effect that the decoupling of state and national elections has had on voter turnout in India's national parliamentary polls since 1971. According to conventional wisdom in the comparative literature on electoral turnout, separate elections to multiple levels and/or branches of government should depress turnout relative to co-temporal polls, ceteris paribus . The evidence from Indian elections provides strong confirmation for this hypothesis. This suggests that political decentralization through separate national and local elections may actually weaken citizens' incentives to participate in the democratic electoral process.     

The Politics of Participation: Mobilization and Turnout over Time

Recent studies have argued that mobilization is not only an important determinant of individual participation, but that it can explain the mystery of declining voter turnout in the United States over the past 40 years. We identify and evaluate three possible ways in which mobilization might have affected levels of turnout over time: (a) aggregate rates of mobilization may have declined, (b) the effectiveness of mobilization contacts may have declined, and (c) the targeting of mobilization may have changed. The first two theories have been well articulated in the literature; the third has not. We find no evidence of a decline in mobilizing activity, nor do we find that mobilizing techniques have become less effective. Although we find that campaigns are more likely to target habitual voters in recent years, this pattern of behavior can only explain a small amount of the overall decline in turnout.     

Voting's Rewards: Voter Turnout, Attentive Publics, and Congressional Allocation of Federal Money

Scholars have had limited success empirically demonstrating the importance of political participation. This study shows that political participation matters because it influences political rewards. Political participation, specifically voting, acts as a political resource for geographic groups. Voting is a resource because members of Congress seek to maximize the benefits of Federal budget allocations going to their districts. Members of Congress not only try to direct resources into their districts, but they also attempt to allocate strategically those resources to the areas that provide the best return in terms of votes. Hence, areas within congressional districts that vote at higher rates will be privileged over areas that vote at lower rates.     

公共决策中的公民参与——基于政治控制的视角

政治民主化进程的推进,加大了公共决策中公民参与的步伐和力度。在中国现代化进程中,公民参与政府决策过程存在一定的问题,也造成了一定程度的不稳定。需要从观念、技术、手段及制度等层面对公共决策中的公民参与施以政治控制,以促进公民参与的有序化。