We cannot understand the effects of personality without accounting for the environment, and we cannot understand the effects of the environment without accounting for personality. Political scientists pay very little attention to personality when they study political behavior. Instead, they prefer to look at environmental variables (campaign spending, personal income, personal education, candidate quality, electoral [...]
Yes, voting is habit-forming, but to a lesser extent than reported previously. Denny and Doyle have a straightforward point in this article: Yes, voting is habit-forming, but to a lesser extent than reported previously. In a widely discussed article, Gerber, Green, and Shachar (2003) reported that voting in one election raises the probability of voting [...]
February 11, 2009 – 11:55 am
Efficient campaign managers should identify these fence-sitters and mobilize only them Recent randomized experiments have shown that door-to-door mobilization efforts can have massive payoffs, boosting turnout by 7 to 10 percentage points among those targeted. But although previous studies have shown that mobilization has a large aggregate effect, they have not shown whether mobilization effects [...]
This “contagion effect” has a stronger effect on turnout than education, income, or age. Nowhere will you find a human relationship associated with more similarities in voting behavior than you will find between a husband and wife. But what causes husbands and wives to embrace similar ideologies, issue positions, and turnout rates? Maybe it’s just [...]
Suppose that the government made a habit of sending your neighbors a letter after every election, telling them whether or not you had bothered to vote. Would you be more likely to turn out? Suppose that the government made a habit of sending your neighbors a letter after every election, telling them whether or not [...]
Are we observing “vote buying” (as we usually assume) or “turnout buying”? The question isn’t merely academic; “vote buying” smacks of corruption, but “turnout buying” looks more like mobilization Suppose that the Republicans started knocking doors on your street offering you and your neighbors a new flatscreen television if you come out and vote for [...]
RSSMy name is Adam Brown. I am an assistant professor of political science. (Learn more.) I own the site and write most of the posts, although anybody can contribute. You can read more about this site here.