Political Participation

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Political Participation

• Why Do People Vote?

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Today

• Forms of political participation
• Explaining the individual decision to vote or
  abstain

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Start With Some Definitions . . .

• Political Efficacy
• Social Capital
• Social capital flows from civic engagement
• Specific forms of social capital
• Norms of trust, reciprocity, and connectedness
• Information
• Efficacy

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Definition of Participation

• acts that aim at influencing the government,
  either by affecting the choice of government
  personnel or by affecting the choices made by
  government personnel (Verba and Nie, 1972)

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Influencing who gets elected

• Voting
• Threshold activity (most people who dont vote
  dont participate at all)

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Voting as a threshold activity
People who vote
People who engage in other forms of participation
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Influencing who gets elected (campaign
participation)

• Voting
• Threshold activity (most people who dont vote
  dont participate at all)
• What if you want to do more?
• Or if you cant vote??
• Not a U.S. citizen
• Not yet 18
• Convicted of a felony

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Influencing who gets elected Beyond Voting

• Donating money
• Volunteering for a campaign
• Signs / buttons / bumper stickers / t-shirts
• Convincing your friends
• Attending a rally
• Registering people to vote
• Participating in caucuses / primaries

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Influencing what they do once theyre in office

• Focus on causes or issues
• Groups
• Rallies
• Boycotts
• Litigation
• Individuals
• Writing letters/phoning/e-mailing
• Signs and bumper stickers
• Civil disobedience

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Important things to remember

• Voting may be the single most important act of
  political participation (why?) but
• There are many, many other ways to participate,
  many of which are open to everyone (regardless of
  eligibility to vote)

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Turning Now to Voting . . .

• First thing you need is the right to vote
• Also called the franchise

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History of the franchise

• Colonial era
• Early 1800s
• 1870 15th Amendment, but . . .
• Poll taxes
• Literacy tests

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History of the franchise, cont.

• 1920 19th Amendment extended right to vote to
  women
• 1924 Snyder Act extended U.S. citizenship to
  all Native Americans and brought them under the
  15th Amendment
• 1961 23rd Amendment gives D.C. residents right
  to vote for president
• 1964 24th Amendment prohibited poll taxes
• 1971 26th Amendment extended voting rights to
  everyone over 18

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Who is still officially disenfranchised?

• Citizens under 18
• Felons
• Resident aliens and illegal immigrants
• But among those who can vote, why do some
  choose not to?

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Pre-1990s Scholarship

• Two camps
• Rational choice theorists
• Demographic predictor researchers

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Rational Choice Theory

• People have preferences
• Act to maximize those preferences/utility
• Constrained by
• Resources
• Information
• What other people do

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Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy
(1957)

• People vote if (PB) C gt 0
• Benefit
• Discounted by Probability of Getting Benefit
• Cost

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Good theory, bad prediction

• Predicts that rational people never vote
• Possible fix
• Focus on different benefits . . . Psychic
  benefits, duty
• Turnout not always sensitive to changes in costs
• National Voter Registration Act (Motor Voter Act)
  of 1993) increased registration but not turnout
• BUT what about effects of same day registration?

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2004 Total Turnout Rates for Voting Eligible
Population

• Minnesota 77.21
• Wisconsin 76.19
• Maine 73.37

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Possible explanations

• Law High Turnout
• Law
• Civic Culture
• High Turnout

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Other Camp

• Demographic people are able to predict behavior
  based on characteristics
• Education
• SES
• Race
• Age
• But, they dont really explain why people vote
  (description rather than explanation)

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So . . .

• One camp is developing explanations that dont do
  a good job of describing actual behavior
• The other camp is developing descriptions but not
  bothering to explain the why question

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Civic Voluntarism Model

• Henry Brady, Sidney Verba and Kay Lehman
  Schlozman
• Voice and Equality

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Civic Voluntarism Model

• Interest/Engagement
• Mobilization/Recruitment
• Resources

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Interest/Engagement

• interest in politics
• political efficacy (I can make a difference, I
  can participate effectively)
• sense of civic duty (Its my job as an American
  to participate)
• group consciousness (As my community goes, so go
  I)
• party identification
• commitment to personal issues

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What might affect interest/engagement?
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Mobilization/Recruitment

• Being asked to participate
• What increases chances of recruitment?

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Resources

• Time
• Money
• Civic skills
• Organizational skills
• Language skills
• Social adeptness
• What increases resources?

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Implications for Civic Voluntarism Model

• Equal opportunity not all that equal
• Importance of social capital and group membership
• Importance of political entrepreneurs
  politicians and groups that mobilize people
• Importance of childhood experiences (family life,
  education) in adult political behavior