Why Do Immigrants Participate in Politics Less Than Native-Born Citizens? A Formative Years Explanation

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruoxi Li ◽  
Bradley M. Jones
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Population Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Older Age ◽  
The Political ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Main Factor ◽  
Formative Years

AbstractOne of the long-standing puzzles in the political behavior literature is about immigrants' low level of political participation: after achieving comparable and sometimes even higher levels of socioeconomic status relative to the native-born citizens, why do immigrants still participate less in politics? We argue that the different formative years experiences associated with immigrants who moved to the United States at an older age is the key that explains the participation gap between immigrants and the native-born population. Using the 1994–2016 Current Population Survey and their Voting and Civic Engagement Supplements as data sources, we develop a hierarchical model that simultaneously accounts for region-, country-, and individual-level variables. The results are striking. We show that immigrants who move to the United States at a young age participate in politics at a rate that is indistinguishable from the native-born population; those who migrated at an older age participate less. The fact that over 60% of the immigrant population moved to the United States as adults is a main factor that contributes to the political participation gap between immigrants and the native-born population.

Democratic Resilience

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
The Face ◽  
Distinguished Group

Politics in the United States has become increasingly polarized in recent decades. Both political elites and everyday citizens are divided into rival and mutually antagonistic partisan camps, with each camp questioning the political legitimacy and democratic commitments of the other side. Does this polarization pose threats to democracy itself? What can make some democratic institutions resilient in the face of such challenges? Democratic Resilience brings together a distinguished group of specialists to examine how polarization affects the performance of institutional checks and balances as well as the political behavior of voters, civil society actors, and political elites. The volume bridges the conventional divide between institutional and behavioral approaches to the study of American politics and incorporates historical and comparative insights to explain the nature of contemporary challenges to democracy. It also breaks new ground to identify the institutional and societal sources of democratic resilience.

A Look Ahead at the 2020 US Elections: The Role of Candidate Diversity in Political Participation

2020 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 436-441
Author(s):  
Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes ◽  
Jose R. Bucheli
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Diverse Population ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Representative Data ◽  
Look Ahead ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Hispanic Voters

An increasingly diverse population in the United States has given rise to a growing body of literature that analyzes the causes and consequences of descriptive representation. Using individual-level representative data on registration and voting for the entire United States over the 2008-2018 decade, we find that diversity in the candidate pool promotes the registration and voting of eligible-to-vote individuals, particularly those belonging to the youngest generations of voters, those located in swing states, and growing minorities, as in the case of Hispanic voters. Given the changing electorate, increasing candidate diversity might prove crucial in promoting political and electoral engagement.

Home on Sunday, Home on Tuesday? Secular Political Participation in the United States

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 334-363
Author(s):  
Mark Brockway
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sharp Rise ◽  
Political Impact ◽  
Religious Landscape

AbstractThe American religious landscape is transforming due to a sharp rise in the percentage of the population that is nonreligious. Political and demographic causes have been proffered but little attention has been paid to the current and potential political impact of these “nones,” especially given the established link between religion, participation, and party politics. I argue that the political impact of nonreligious Americans lies in an unexplored subset of the nonreligious population called committed seculars. Committed seculars de-identify with religion, they adopt secular beliefs, and join organizations structured on secular beliefs. Using a unique survey of a secular organization, the American Humanist Association, I demonstrate that committed seculars are extremely partisan and participatory, and are driven to participate by their ideological extremity in relation to the Democratic Party. These results point to a long-term mobilizing dimension for Democrats and indicate the potential polarizing influence of seculars in party politics.

The Polarizing Effect of the March for Science on Attitudes toward Scientists

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 782-788 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Motta
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Online Panel ◽  
Political Impact ◽  
Political Actions ◽  
Answering Questions

ABSTRACTAmericans’ attitudes toward scientists have become more negative in recent years. Although researchers have considered several individual-level factors that might explain this change, little attention has been given to the political actions of scientists themselves. This article considers how March for Science rallies that took place across the United States in late April 2017 influenced Americans’ attitudes toward scientists and the research they produce. An online panel study surveying respondents three days before and two days after the March found that liberals’ and conservatives’ attitudes toward scientists polarized following the March. Liberals’ attitudes toward scientists became more positive whereas conservatives’ attitudes became more negative. However, the March appears to have had little effect on the public’s attitudes about scientific research. In addition to answering questions about the March’s political impact, this research calls attention to the possibility that the political actions of scientists can shape public opinion about them.

The Impact of Race on Political Behaviour in Britain

1985 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 528-539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Welch ◽  
Donley T. Studlar
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Ethnic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Multivariate Methods ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Political Behaviour ◽  
The Impact

In contrast to the United States, where analyses of the political behaviour of blacks number in the hundreds, if not more, substantial studies of the political attitudes and behaviour of Britain's non-white minority are fairly scarce. As non-whites have become more visible in the political arena, however, attention by academics has increased. But as yet there have been few countrywide, empirical, and systematic investigations of the political behaviour and attitudes of this population. Our Note uses multivariate methods to investigate the extent of political participation of Britain's non-white minorities in the 1979 election. We focus on a wide variety of political activities and a few selected issue concerns. We attempt to place our findings in the context of some theories of ethnic politics that have developed to explain black political behaviour in Britain and in the United States.

Emanating Political Participation: Untangling the Spatial Structure Behind Participation

2008 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
WENDY K TAM CHO ◽  
THOMAS J RUDOLPH
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Spatial Structure ◽  
Racial Diversity ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Education Level ◽  
Aggregate Level ◽  
Spatial Econometric ◽  
Individual Level

This is an analysis of the spatial structure of political participation in the United States using spatial econometric techniques and newly available geo-coded data. The results provide strong evidence that political participation is geographically clustered, and that this clustering cannot be explained entirely by social network involvement, individual-level characteristics, such as race, income, education, cognitive forms of political engagement, or by aggregate-level factors such as racial diversity, income inequality, mobilization or mean education level. The analysis suggests that the spatial structure of participation is consistent with a diffusion process that occurs independently from citizens' involvement in social networks.

The Dearborn Effect: A Comparison of the Political Dispositions of Shi‘a and Sunni Muslims in the United States

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 154-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cyrus Ali Contractor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Opinion Survey ◽  
Muslim American ◽  
American System ◽  
Depth Study ◽  
Areas Of Interest

AbstractThe study of Muslims in the West is a burgeoning field, in which scholars are examining the religious, social and political lives of Muslims as minorities. This article continues in that vein, and utilizes the Muslim American Political Opinion Survey (MAPOS) to compare Shi‘a and Sunni responses in a few areas of interest: religious identity, views of being a Muslim in the United States, and political participation in the American system. Using a comparison of mean responses and the t-test to analyze 13 variables, it demonstrates that Sunnis felt more strongly that the teachings of Islam were compatible with political participation in the United States, and that a statistically significantly higher percentage of Shi‘a respondents participated in a rally or protest. The study goes further to suggest that perhaps congregants of Shi‘a mosques view Islamic teachings as being more compatible with participation in American politics, and opens the door for further consideration and research involving a more in-depth study of the Shi‘as in the American political context, one that examines how the narratives that drive Shi‘ism affect individual Shi‘a social and political participation in a country where they are a real “minority within a minority”.

scholarly journals Beyond the restrictive consensus: elections in Mexico (1809-1847)

2012 ◽  
Vol 20 (42) ◽  
pp. 39-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Antonio Aguilar Rivera
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
New Spain ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
Early Implementation ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
Popular Classes

This essay looks at experiments with a system of representation taking place in New Spain and later in Mexico. The elections that were carried out during the days of Spanish rule dealt expediently with the political dynamics of this form of government, such as broad-based political participation. . We study the elections during the early decades of independence through the beginning of the war with the United States, and we find that in spite of the fact that during the 1830s there was growing consensus among the elites that it would be best to implement censitary suffrage, the desire to exclude the working classes did not prove feasible. None of the factions involved were able to abstain from appeals to the "lower (threatening) classes". We attempt to explain why this was so. There are several different hypotheses in this regard. One argument is that the early implementation of sufferage was a result of competition between antagonistic factions. However, by the end of the 1820s, popular mobilization led to social disorder, such as the destruction of the Parian market. This stimulated elite preoccupations. At the beginning of the 1830s, the ruling classes held back on engaging popular classes in electoral struggles. Yet this agreement proved short-lived, with conservatives giving up on the notion of census suffrage and the renewed insistence of liberals, encouraged by electoral triumphs, on maintaining a broad electoral base.

The Political Assimilation of Muslim Americans

2019 ◽  
pp. 13-33
Author(s):  
Edward E. Curtis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Muslim Americans ◽  
Muslim American ◽  
Political Career ◽  
Twenty First Century

An examination of the anti-Muslim reactions to the political career of US Rep. André Carson (D-Indiana) indicates the challenges facing Muslim Americans who desire political assimilation into the United States. This chapter analyzes formal Muslim American political participation in the twenty-first century and the anti-Muslim discrimination, originating at both popular and governmental levels, that in design or effect rejects Muslim American assimilation.

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