Participation

Question 1

What are the predictors of electoral participation? What is the strongest predictor and why? Why do people participate in elections and politics?

Answer 1

Electoral Participation
* Not just voting
* Donations
* Volunteering
* Talking to friends and family
Why do people participate?
* Ability
* Education
* Income
* Motivation
* Individual
* Contextual
* Opportunity
Education
* One of the strongest (if not the strongest) predictors of electoral
participation is education
* The theory that education directly causes political participation
* By being educated
* People are more likely to understand how politics will impact their life and
will be motivated to vote
* Will better understand the process of registering to vote and going to vote
* Though, as education levels have increased, participation has not
Education as socialization
* Schooling and education imparts social norms of civic participation
* Could be teachers, classroom environment, peer groups
* Exposure to groups and ideas imparts democratic normsEducation as a proxy
* Education is indicative of some other motivator, social status
* Those who seek higher social status get educated, and those who are
of a higher social status are more likely to participate in politics

Question 2

How has participation changed over time?

Answer 2

Why do people participate?
* Ability
* Education
* Income
* Motivation
* Individual
* Contextual
* Opportunity

Question 3

Why does the United States have low participation?

Answer 3

• Lack of compulsory voting
• Election day is a workday
• Must register to vote
• Vote more often than any other democracy

Question 4

Can campaigns motivate turnout? If so, how do they?

Answer 4

Campaigns devote significant amounts of money to getting people to turnout
* Interest groups also involved in this
* Types of GOTV
* Door knocking
* Phone calls
* Direct
* Can spurn people who were on the fence about voting or were not aware
there was an election to go vote

Question 5

Are voters and non-voters systematically different?

Answer 5

• We tend to see differences in participation across multiple
  demographics
• Age
• Gender
• Race
• Income
• Education
  (Ex: Women tend to vote more than men, those with higher income tend to vote more than a person with low income. Older people vote more than people ages 18-24)