Voter Turnout: A Social Theory of Political Participation Meredith, Rolfe Cambridge, Cambridge University Press (2012), 227 p., ISBN 978-1-107-01541-8

2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 354-356
Author(s):  
Jan Rosset
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Cambridge University

scholarly journals Acute Financial Hardship and Voter Turnout: Theory and Evidence from the Sequence of Bank Working Days

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
MAX SCHAUB
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Financial Hardship ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Financial Status ◽  
Definitive Answer ◽  
Financial Difficulties ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Using Data

How does poverty influence political participation? This question has interested political scientists since the early days of the discipline, but providing a definitive answer has proved difficult. This article focuses on one central aspect of poverty—the experience of acute financial hardship, lasting a few days at a time. Drawing on classic models of political engagement and novel theoretical insights, I argue that by inducing stress, social isolation, and feelings of alienation, acute financial hardship has immediate negative effects on political participation. Inference relies on a natural experiment afforded by the sequence of bank working days that causes short-term financial difficulties for the poor. Using data from three million individuals, personal interviews, and 1,100 elections in Germany, I demonstrate that acute financial hardship reduces both turnout intentions and actual turnout. The results imply that the financial status of the poor on election day can have important consequences for their political representation.

scholarly journals Levels and Determinants of Youth Political Participation: Regional Inequalities and Northeastern Slovenia

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2018) (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrej Kirbiš
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Regional Variation ◽  
Civic Participation ◽  
Scientific Paper ◽  
One Dimension ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Regional Inequalities ◽  
Post Communism

Category: 1.01 Original scientific paper Language: Original in English (Abstract in English and Slovenian, Summary in Slovenian) Key words: political participation, determinants, youth, Slovenia, regional inequalities, democracy, civic participation, democratization, democratic consolidation, post-communism Abstract: The main purpose of our study was 1) to analyse previously unexamined regional inequalities in four dimensions of political participation among Slovenian youth (self-reported voter turnout, non-electoral conventional participation, protest participation and civic participation); 2) to examine macro-determinants of regional inequalities in political participation; and 3) to examine regional variation in individual-level determinants of political participation. We found several substantial regional inequalities in youth political participation, although the extent of inequalities differed depending on examined participation dimension. Regional inequalities exist particularly in voter turnout and civic participation, while at the same time, regions that score higher on one dimension in some cases score lower on other dimensions.

Polling place changes and political participation: evidence from North Carolina presidential elections, 2008–2016

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Joshua D. Clinton ◽  
Nick Eubank ◽  
Adriane Fresh ◽  
Michael E. Shepherd
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Search Costs ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Early Voting ◽  
Location Change ◽  
Over Time

Abstract How do changes in Election Day polling place locations affect voter turnout? We study the behavior of more than 2 million eligible voters across three closely-contested presidential elections (2008–2016) in the swing state of North Carolina. Leveraging within-voter variation in polling place location change over time, we demonstrate that polling place changes reduce Election Day voting on average statewide. However, this effect is almost completely offset by substitution into early voting, suggesting that voters, on average, respond to a change in their polling place by choosing to vote early. While there is heterogeneity in these effects by the distance of the polling place change and the race of the affected voter, the fully offsetting substitution into early voting still obtains. We theorize this is because voters whose polling places change location receive notification mailers, offsetting search costs and priming them to think about the election before election day, driving early voting.

scholarly journals Do Populist Parties Increase Voter Turnout? Evidence From Over 40 Years of Electoral History in 31 European Democracies

2020 ◽  
pp. 003232172092325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arndt Leininger ◽  
Maurits J Meijers
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Party System ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Quality Of Democracy ◽  
Empirical Tests ◽  
The Relationship

While some consider populist parties to be a threat to liberal democracy, others have argued that populist parties may positively affect the quality of democracy by increasing political participation of citizens. This supposition, however, has hitherto not been subjected to rigorous empirical tests. The voter turnout literature, moreover, has primarily focused on stable institutional and party system characteristics – ignoring more dynamic determinants of voter turnout related to party competition. To fill this double gap in the literature, we examine the effect of populist parties, both left and right, on aggregate-level turnout in Western and Eastern European parliamentary elections. Based on a dataset on 315 elections in 31 European democracies since 1970s, we find that turnout is higher when populist parties are represented in parliament prior to an election in Eastern Europe, but not in Western Europe. These findings further our understanding of the relationship between populism, political participation and democracy.

Quotas and Political Participation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca R. Jensenius
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
The Political ◽  
Key Indicator ◽  
Political Experience ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Electoral Turnout

Chapter 6 examines changes in political participation among voters, focusing on a key indicator in the study of democracies: electoral turnout. Data on state election outcomes between 1974 and 2007 show that turnout plummeted in the first election after constituencies became reserved in the 1970s. Gradually, there was a narrowing gap in voter turnout between SC-reserved and nonreserved constituencies, but after more than 30 years there was still a difference of several percentage points. Exploring the reasons, the chapter shows that this variation in political participation it was not mainly due to caste bias, or feelings of being disempowered, but rather because of the weaker networks and mobilizational capacity of SC politicians. As the political experience and mobilizational capacity of SC politicians has increased, so has voter turnout.

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