Increasing and diversifying turnout in non-electoral participation - a field experiment
Non-electoral participation initiatives are regarded as the gold standard for good governance - encouraging and sustaining democratic engagement. However, participation rates typically are low and disadvantaged groups under-represented. A large body of evidence shows that communication campaigns can increase participation in elections. However, the evidence base for non-electoral participation is scarce and in many aspects completely lacking. This study contributes to the literature by theorising and empirically testing whether such inequalities can be redressed. It uses a randomised field experiment with 29,008 households in a large city in the UK to test the effect of different direct mail messages on participation. It illustrates that rigorous testing of interventions is necessary to understand their impact across different democratic contexts: Contrary to what theory would predict for electoral contexts and paid-for work, all tested interventions significantly decrease participation in the governance initiative under study.