Motivating voter turnout by invoking the self.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Bryan CJ
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3150938 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Similar Datasets
Project description:Since Downs proposed that the act of voting is irrational in 1957, myriad models have been proposed to explain voting and account for observed turnout patterns. We propose a model in which partisans consider both the instrumental and expressive benefits of their vote when deciding whether or not to abstain in an election, introducing an asymmetry that most other models do not consider. Allowing learning processes within our electorate, we analyze what evolutionarily stable strategies are rationalizable under various conditions. Upon varying electorate size, the partisan split of the electorate, and the degree to which an electorate takes underdog considerations into account in its payoff structure, we find that different equilibria arise. Our model predicts comparative statics that are consistent with voter behavior, specifically affirming a "size effect," in which turnout decreases as electorate size increases. Furthermore, relaxing some of our preliminary assumptions eliminates some of the discrepancies between the predictions of our model and empirical voter behavior. In particular, our work demonstrates that misperceptions about the partisan split of an electorate may account for high turnout behavior .Supplementary informationThe online version supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13235-021-00384-1.
| S-EPMC8542561 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Low rates of youth voting are a feature of contemporary democracies the world over, with the United States having some of the lowest youth turnout rates in the world. However, far too little is known about how to address the dismal rates of youth voter participation found in many advanced democracies. In this paper, we examine the causal effect of a potentially scalable solution that has attracted renewed interest today: voluntary national service programs targeted at the youth civilian population. Leveraging the large pool of young people who apply each year to participate in the Teach For America (TFA) program-a prominent voluntary national service organization in the United States that integrates college graduates into teaching roles in low-income communities for 2 y-we examine the effect of service participation on voter turnout. To do so, we match TFA administrative records to large-scale nationwide voter files and employ a fuzzy regression discontinuity design around the recommended admittance cutoff for the TFA program. We find that serving as a teacher in the Teach For America national service program has a large effect on civic participation-substantially increasing voter turnout rates among applicants admitted to the program. This effect is noticeably larger than that of previous efforts to increase youth turnout. Our results suggest that civilian national service programs targeted at young people have great promise in helping to narrow the stubborn and enduring political engagement gap between younger and older citizens.
| S-EPMC9304004 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Twin and adoption studies have shown that individual differences in political participation can be explained, in part, by genetic variation. However, these research designs cannot identify which genes are related to voting or the pathways through which they exert influence, and their conclusions rely on possibly restrictive assumptions. In this study, we use three different US samples and a Swedish sample to test whether genes that have been identified as associated with educational attainment, one of the strongest correlates of political participation, predict self-reported and validated voter turnout. We find that a polygenic score capturing individuals' genetic propensity to acquire education is significantly related to turnout. The strongest associations we observe are in second-order midterm elections in the United States and European Parliament elections in Sweden, which tend to be viewed as less important by voters, parties, and the media and thus present a more information-poor electoral environment for citizens to navigate. A within-family analysis suggests that individuals' education-linked genes directly affect their voting behavior, but, for second-order elections, it also reveals evidence of genetic nurture. Finally, a mediation analysis suggests that educational attainment and cognitive ability combine to account for between 41% and 63% of the relationship between the genetic propensity to acquire education and voter turnout.
| S-EPMC8685665 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Scholars have linked cost and life stress to lower voter turnout with clear implications for voting during the COVID-19 pandemic. We ask whether COVID-19 reduces turnout intention and how election agencies can mitigate this effect. We use a series of six survey and conjoint experiments implemented in samples totalling over 28,000 Canadian respondents collected between July and November of 2020 to show that: 1) priming people to think about COVID-19 reduces turnout intention, especially among those who feel most threatened by the disease; 2) safety measures for in-person voting, such as mandatory masks and physical distancing, can improve safety perceptions and willingness to vote in-person, and 3) providing people information about safety precautions for in-person voting mitigates the negative effect of priming COVID-19. These studies illustrate the importance of both the implementation and communication of measures by election agencies designed to make people safe - and feel safe - while voting in-person.
| S-EPMC8796996 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Much has been written on the positive effect of direct democracy (initiatives, referendums) on voter turnout. However, we have limited knowledge about potential differential effects on voters belonging to various ethnic groups. The paper argues that depending on a group's responsiveness to the political context, direct democracy can (dis-)integrate voters (from) into the electorate. Empirical analysis of Current Population Survey (CPS) voting supplement survey data, together with data on the absolute use of direct democracy across US states, corroborates this theoretical expectation, however lending more support for the disintegrating assumption. Frequent direct democratic elections further widen the negative voting gap between first-generation Asian voters and voters living in the US for three generations or longer, whereas they tend to diminish this voting gap for first-generation Hispanic voters. The disintegrative pattern for first-generation Asian voters remains even significant when excluding California from the state sample, yet not the integrative tendency for first-generation Hispanics. Additional analyses using alternative measures of direct democracy and voting, and applying statistical adjustments to address causality concerns, confirm the robustness of these findings, which shed light on the so-far underexplored (dis-)integrative potential of political institutions.
| S-EPMC7900089 | biostudies-literature
Project description:PurposeThe ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) severely impacted both health and the economy. Absent an effective vaccine, preventive measures used, some of which are being relaxed, have included school closures, restriction of movement, and banning of large gatherings. Our goal was to estimate the association of voter turnout with county-level COVID-19 risks.MethodsWe used publicly available data on voter turnout in the March 10 primary in three states, COVID-19 confirmed cases by day and county, and county-level census data. We used zero-inflated negative binomial regression to estimate the association of voter turnout with COVID-19 incidence, adjusted for county-level population density and proportions: over age 65 years, female, Black, with college education, with high school education, poor, obese, and smokers.ResultsCOVID-19 risk was associated with voter turnout, most strongly in Michigan during the week starting 3 days postelection (risk ratio, 1.24; 95% confidence interval, 1.16-1.33). For longer periods, the association was progressively weaker (risk ratio 0.98-1.03).ConclusionsDespite increased absentee-ballot voting in the primary, our results suggest an association of voter turnout in at least one state with a detectable increase in risks associated with and perhaps due to greater exposures related to the primary.
| S-EPMC7328545 | biostudies-literature
Project description:One of the core tenets of a well-functioning representative democracy is that the people who vote to elect government officials are representative of the public. Here we reinforce the idea that reality is far from this lofty ideal. We document the extent and nature of inequities in voter participation in the United States with a level of granularity and precision that previous research has not afforded. To do so, we use a unique nationwide dataset of approximately 400 million validated voting records across multiple election cycles. With this novel dataset, we document large and persistent gaps in voter turnout by race, age, and political affiliation. Minority citizens, young people, and those who support the Democratic Party are much less likely to vote than whites, older citizens, and Republican Party supporters. Minorities, youth, and democrats are also much more likely to live in local communities where fewer individuals vote-areas that we term turnout deserts. Turnout deserts are especially pernicious given that they are self-reinforcing-bolstered by the social dynamics that fundamentally shape citizens' voting patterns. Our results show just how glaring inequities in political participation are in the US. These patterns threaten the very fabric of our democracy and fundamentally shift the balance of political power in the halls of government towards the interests of whites, older citizens, and republicans. They illustrate that participation in the United States is strikingly unequal-far from the ideals that this country has long aspired to.
| S-EPMC9177044 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Academic research indicates that Bangladesh has relatively low levels of employee green behaviour. Developed and developing nations worldwide have raised environmental awareness within their workforces in response to the alarming rate of environmental deterioration caused by human activities. This study looks into potential links between the motives (intrinsic and extrinsic), green behaviour, and attitudes of Bangladeshi employees. A theoretically supported framework has been developed using self-determination theory. Purposive sampling was used for this survey on Bangladeshi financial institutions (private banks). Data were analyzed using partial least squares based structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings propose that employee green attitude mediates the relationship between intrinsic motivation and employee green behaviour. Employee green attitude (EGA) also mediates the relationship between employee green behaviour (EGB) and introjected, identified, integrated, and external regulation (external motivation). The outcomes display a negative relationship between introjected regulation and employee green behaviour as well as external regulation and employee green behaviour, contradicting other research. In Bangladesh, EGA and EGB are understudied; therefore, this research has significance. This research will assist the international community in addressing environmental, social, and economic concerns for a more sustainable future.
| S-EPMC10368830 | biostudies-literature
Project description: Not available
| S-EPMC7571786 | biostudies-literature
Project description:We consider a simplified model of a social network in which individuals have one of two opinions (called 0 and 1) and their opinions and the network connections coevolve. Edges are picked at random. If the two connected individuals hold different opinions then, with probability 1 - ?, one imitates the opinion of the other; otherwise (i.e., with probability ?), the link between them is broken and one of them makes a new connection to an individual chosen at random (i) from those with the same opinion or (ii) from the network as a whole. The evolution of the system stops when there are no longer any discordant edges connecting individuals with different opinions. Letting ? be the fraction of voters holding the minority opinion after the evolution stops, we are interested in how ? depends on ? and the initial fraction u of voters with opinion 1. In case (i), there is a critical value ?(c) which does not depend on u, with ? ? u for ? > ?(c) and ? ? 0 for ? < ?(c). In case (ii), the transition point ?(c)(u) depends on the initial density u. For ? > ?(c)(u), ? ? u, but for ? < ?(c)(u), we have ?(?,u) = ?(?,1/2). Using simulations and approximate calculations, we explain why these two nearly identical models have such dramatically different phase transitions.
| S-EPMC3309720 | biostudies-literature