Electoral Participation, Disagreement, and Diversity in Social Networks: A Matter of Intimacy?

Abstract

General consensus concerning the nature of the relationship between political disagreement and turnout has not yet been reached: while several studies have demonstrated the demobilizing effect of disagreement, others have found no significant evidence for this. Recently, scholars have argued that diversity — a situation in which some people are in agreement with ego and some are not — can boost electoral participation. The present article argues that the insights of previous studies are the result of two differentiated effects that depend on the level of intimacy of the discussants to which one is exposed. By employing a set of linear regression models on Italian National Election Study 2013 pre-electoral survey ( N > 8,000), we show that mixed political views among friends boost electoral participation. For what concerns relatives, the likelihood to vote decreases linearly with increasing disagreement.