Voter Mobilization Research Articles

Democracy with group identity

Group-based identity undermines democracy by impeding democratic change of government. A substantial literature has therefore studied how to make democracy consistent with group identity. We contribute to this literature by introducing the role of group decisiveness into voting incentives and mobilization of voters. In the elections that we study, for the same populations, accounting for income and other influences, group identity increased voter turnout on average by some 8 percentage points in local elections and decreased voter turnout by some 20 percentage points in national elections. We empirically investigate the effect of group identity on voter turnout and also evaluate whether group identity resulted in budgetary imbalance or replacement of local government because of dysfunctionality. Our contribution is to show how democracy can persist with group identity, although democracy in such instances differs from usual political competition.

Euroscepticism: A Mobilising Appeal? Not for Everyone!

Abstract This study examines the changing role of the EU agenda in Slovak politics. It identifies old and newly emerging faces of Euroscepticism and compares them with general theoretical concepts. Furthermore, it asks to what extent Eurosceptical appeals mobilised Slovak voters in the European Parliament (EP) elections of 2014 and whether Eurosceptical parties represent a meaningful electoral choice for voters. In the past, many analyses have provided evidence that the European agenda is not salient and the EU political arena is perceived as one where there is less at stake. Nevertheless, the economic crisis and so-called Greek bailout were followed by a rise in Euroscepticism and EU-criticism. In some EU countries, this enhanced voter mobilisation in the EP elections. In others – including Slovakia – we saw not only a significant decline in electoral turnout but relatively poor results for Eurosceptical parties as well. This study identifies the factors behind abstention and explores voting patterns in this specific second-order election in Slovakia. Moreover, it investigates how the parties are perceived in terms of their positions on EU integration and the potential impact on voter choices. I conclude that the EU agenda is still not the deciding factor for voters even in the case of EP elections. Eurosceptical appeals are less mobilising in this context, and the public sees no differences among parties’ stances on the EU.

Small fish swimming in the shape of a shark: why politicians join political parties in the Pacific Islands

Political parties are ubiquitous features of contemporary models of representative democracy and are widely believed to be integral to transition, and yet persistently democratic Pacific Island countries tend to have ‘weakly’ institutionalised parties – some have none at all – that have little influence on the mobilisation of voters during elections. Party theory largely assumes that politicians form parties to win elections: the author asks why, given the commonly cited irrelevance of party politics in much of the Pacific, politicians join political parties at all. Drawing on 96 biographical accounts – including 72 in-depth interviews –he interprets the explanations politicians give for joining, leaving and changing parties. The author identifies three narratives. The first accords with an augmented rational actor model, the second with a responsible parties model and the third points to intrinsic motivations that are largely overlooked in the existing literature. The author concludes that a comprehensive account must include all three interpretations.

Unbiased Estimation of the Average Treatment Effect in Cluster-Randomized Experiments

AbstractMany estimators of the average treatment effect, including the difference-in-means, may be biased when clusters of units are allocated to treatment. This bias remains even when the number of units within each cluster grows asymptotically large. In this paper, we propose simple, unbiased, location-invariant, and covariate-adjusted estimators of the average treatment effect in experiments with random allocation of clusters, along with associated variance estimators. We then analyze a cluster-randomized field experiment on voter mobilization in the US, demonstrating that the proposed estimators have precision that is comparable, if not superior, to that of existing, biased estimators of the average treatment effect.

Strategic mobilization: Why proportional representation decreases voter mobilization

Many scholars suggest that proportional representation increases party mobilization by creating nationally competitive districts that give parties an incentive to mobilize everywhere. This paper provides theoretical and empirical arguments that bring this claim into question. I propose, unlike earlier scholars, that the positive effect of district competitiveness on party mobilization efforts increases as electoral districts become more disproportional, arguing that disproportionality itself encourages mobilization by exaggerating the impact of competitiveness on mobilization. Individual-level survey data from national legislative elections show that competitiveness has a much larger positive effect on parties' mobilization efforts in single-member districts than in proportional districts. Contrary to prior literature, these results suggest proportional electoral rules give parties no strong incentive to mobilize anywhere.

Memory and Voter Mobilization

Using a combination of randomized experiments and survey data, this article presents evidence relevant to two debates in political science. The first is between those scholars who favor an online processing model of how American citizens process political information before elections, and those scholars who favor a memory-based model of opinion formation. The second debate is between students of voting behavior who favor the use of randomized experiments and those who favor public opinion surveys. The article examines the results of get-out-the-vote campaigns by three community organizations during California’s 2008 general election. Shortly after the election, individuals were surveyed about whether they had been contacted. Eligible voters who did not recall having been contacted but who, in fact, had been contacted were more likely to vote than were the respondents in the control group. This finding is consistent with the online processing model. Moreover, the individuals who completed the post-election survey were more likely to vote than was typical of the larger pool of participants in the field experiments. The unrepresentativeness of the survey respondents leads to inflated assessments of the effectiveness of the get-out-the-vote campaigns, and highlights the challenge of constructing representative samples for election surveys.

Mobilization by Different Means: Nativity and GOTV in the United States

We compare the impact of 15 randomized get-out-the-vote (GOTV) field experiments on naturalized and U.S.-born voters. We find that mobilization increased turnout among U.S.-born Latinos, but had no measurable effect among Latino naturalized citizens. In contrast, GOTV increased turnout among naturalized Asian Americans but had no measureable effect among U.S.-born Asian Americans. Race politics scholars have long argued that the terms we use to describe ethnoracial groups mask significant internal heterogeneity. We show how this heterogeneity affects voter mobilization, demonstrating the importance of seeing nativity and national origin as critical lines of demarcation that affect how certain individuals are mobilized to participate in politics. 2

South Africa: The 2014 National and Provincial Elections

On 7 May 2014, South Africa held its fifth national and provincial elections since the end of apartheid in 1994. Despite a degree of discontent, the ANC remained firmly in power, receiving 62.15 per cent of the vote. Frustration about non-delivery of services, autocratic tendencies within the ruling party and widespread corrupt practices did not translate into substantially more votes for opposition parties, except in the Western Cape and Gauteng regions (and a swing vote from COPE to DA in Northern Cape). However, voter mobilisation seems to be stagnating and ANC breakaway parties are not faring particularly well. Twenty years after the end of apartheid, popular discontent with the ANC government has expressed itself in voting apathy, particularly among the “born-free” generation. Just as in 2004 and 2009, non-voters remain the largest group in the South African electorate, outnumbering even the ANC.

Does Voter Turnout Influence School Bond Elections?

This article investigates the role of voter turnout in school bond election outcomes. It is widely believed that turnout is negatively related to bond approval rates. Conclusions from previous empirical research, however, may be misleading because many sociodemographic factors and election parameters that influence bond support are also likely to influence voter turnout decisions. To account for the endogeneity of turnout, we employ an instrumental variable approach. We find that the persistent part of voter turnout plays a negligible role in explaining bond approval shares conditioned on election timing, past voting behavior, and district characteristics. Using first‐difference models, change in turnout has a negative and significant influence on change in approval share and probability of bond success. Our results support previous research and suggest that targeted voter mobilization strategies have the potential to influence school bond outcomes.

Revisiting Latino Voting

Traditional vote-choice models include variables such as party identification, assessments of the economy, as well as other demographic characteristics. We argue that variables that tap shared racial/ethnic identity or some such similar dimension can enhance Latino vote-choice models beyond the traditional model. We evaluate Barack Obama and Mitt Romney’s cross-racial mobilization of Latino voters during the 2012 Presidential election. Using a survey of several thousand Latino voters, we find that these candidates’ policy stances vis-à-vis immigration and their ability to convey care and concern to the Latino community are important variables that guide Latino vote choice. Implications are discussed.

Digital Media in the Obama Campaigns of 2008 and 2012: Adaptation to the Personalized Political Communication Environment

ABSTRACTThis essay provides a descriptive interpretation of the role of digital media in the campaigns of Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 with a focus on two themes: personalized political communication and the commodification of digital media as tools. The essay covers campaign finance strategy, voter mobilization on the ground, innovation in social media, and data analytics, and why the Obama organizations were more innovative than those of his opponents. The essay provides a point of contrast for the other articles in this special issue, which describe sometimes quite different campaign practices in recent elections across Europe.

Chasing the Digital Wave: International Perspectives on the Growth of Online Campaigning

ABSTRACTIn this series of articles we present new insight into the drivers, quality, and impact of web campaigning up to date by reflecting on the uptake, maturity, and impact of internet campaigning in elections around the world. Specifically, we use the contributions to address four key topics that have been addressed by the web campaigns literature since its origins. First, diffusion and how widespread web campaigning has become; second, the issue of normalization and how far web campaigns favour the already powerful and well resourced; third, we discuss whether campaign style is changing and becoming more interactive and participatory as a result of the new digital technology; finally, we provide new evidence on the question of voter mobilization and the extent to which the web appears to be a voter generator for political parties and candidates. While answers vary according to context it is clear that web campaigning is common practice in democratic elections, although the U.S. retains its leading role for innovation and experimentation. The bigger players still dominate but social media platforms appear to be a more equal playing field. Opportunities for interaction and participation remain under-used, which is even more of an oversight by parties given that it does web campaigns do appear linked to stronger voter support.

Political Machines at Work Voter Mobilization and Electoral Subversion in the Workplace

The authors explore how modern autocrats win elections by inducing employers to mobilize their employees to vote for the regime and thereby subvert the electoral process. using two original surveys of employers and workers conducted around the 2011 parliamentary elections in russia, they find that just under one-quarter of employers engaged in some form of political mobilization. they then develop a simple framework for identifying which firms engage in voter mobilization and which workers are targeted for mobilization. firms that are vulnerable to state pressure—financially dependent firms and those in sectors characterized by asset immobility—are among the most common sites of workplace-based electoral subversion. the authors also find that workers who are especially dependent on their employer are more likely to be targeted for mobilization. By identifying the conditions under which workplace mobilization occurs in authoritarian regimes, the authors contribute to the long-standing debate about the economic bases of democratization. in addition, they explore an understudied means of subverting elections in contemporary autocracies: the use of economic coercion to mobilize voters. Moreover, their research finds that clientelist exchange can thrive in industrial settings and in the absence of deeply embedded political parties.

Electoral Mobilization for European Parliament Elections – A Portuguese Quasi-Experimental Plan for The 2004/2009 Elections

The European Parliament (EP) elections have registered high rates of abstention and Portugal is no different from all the other EU countries. From a relational marketing paradigm, we have tried to define the concept of local proximity-based political communication, the grounds for a research program based on a quasi-experimental plan aimed at verifying a set of assumptions on the effects of local proximity-based political communication on the mobilization of Portuguese voters for the EP elections of 2004 and 2009. The results are clear: the proximity-based political communication generated significant electoral mobilization in those two elections.

The Heuristic Function of Party Affiliation in Voter Mobilization Campaigns: Informational Short Cut or Source Cue?

Party affiliation is the most important heuristic that helps individuals infer information about candidates campaigning in elections. Knowing a candidate’s party affiliation should therefore help individuals of all partisan persuasions to arrive at voting decisions, thereby increasing turnout. However, if a heuristic helps individuals to connect messages to sources that they like or dislike depending on their political predispositions, a candidate’s party affiliation could instead cue individuals to either accept or discount the message altogether. Using the methodological rigor of a randomized GOTV field experiment to address this important theoretical distinction between the heuristic functions of party affiliation, we vary whether a party’s GOTV call refers to the candidate’s party affiliation during a low-information election. Our results support the idea that individuals use party affiliation as a cue to decide whether to accept or reject a GOTV message, rather than as an informational shortcut to candidate’s ideology or policy positions.

Reevaluating the Vote Market Hypothesis: Effects of Australian Ballot Reform on Voter Turnout

This research reevaluates the effect of the Australian ballot reforms of the late nineteenth century on voter mobilization and turnout, challenging the “vote market hypothesis” regarding voter bribery by political parties. We propose that any subsequent declines in turnout were more directly affected by ballot design than by voter secrecy. In a regression analysis of voter turnout in statewide gubernatorial elections from 1870 to 1910, we find a significant decline in turnout in those states implementing “office bloc” reform ballots. However, the use of “party column” reform ballots did not lead to a decline in turnout. The results suggest that secrecy in voting does not fully explain the national turnout decline observed after passage.

The Role of Call Quality in Voter Mobilization: Implications for Electoral Outcomes and Experimental Design

We demonstrate the centrality of high quality personal interactions for successfully overcoming the collective action problem of voter mobilization, and highlight the need for attention to treatment quality before making substantive inferences from field experiments. We exploit natural variation in the quality of voter mobilization phone calls across call centers to examine how call quality affects voter mobilization in a large-scale field experiment conducted during the 2010 Election. High quality calls (from call centers specializing in calling related to politics) produced significant increases in turnout. In contrast, low quality calls (from multi-purpose commercial call centers) failed to increase turnout. Furthermore, we offer caution about using higher contact rates as an indication of delivery quality. Our treatment conditions with higher contact rates had no impact on turnout, suggesting an unfavorable trade-off between quantity of contacts and call quality.

The Resurgent American Voter, 1996-2012

Sparked both by normative concerns and a classic empirical puzzle, scholars developed and tested a variety of explanations for the turnout decline in the US between 1960 and 1988. More than a decade of research eventually showed that the sources of the decline in turnout were multifaceted: it stemmed in various degrees from declines in partisanship, political efficacy and newspaper reading, mobilization, and changes in the age distribution in the electorate with lower rates of participation in younger cohorts. Turnout slid to 52.8% of the voting eligible population in 1992, surged briefly in 1992 to 58.1%, then bottomed out at 51.7% in 1996. Since then, turnout increased in three consecutive presidential elections, reaching an estimated 61.4% in 2008, but dropped back to 58.2% in 2012. Using pooled cross-sectional data from the American National Election Studies, I find that demographic and electoral reform variables account for little of the increase in turnout since 1996, while perceptions of partisan differences and renewed importance of voter mobilization do account for substantial portions of the increase.

Analisis Perubahan Partai Politik Pemenang Pemilu di Indonesia

By three elections in Indonesia, the pattern seen is a change in a very significant political force. It changed not only the party in the first position, but also a different party: three elections produced three different parties that received the most votes. Major political changes in Indonesia have been coloring since the reformation in 1998. The first change occurred in the 1999 election. PDIP evicted Golkar that has ruled for more than 30 years claiming an absolute majority. Then in the 2004 election, the strength of the party with the most votes moved to Golkar. In 2009, a major change occurred again. Top position was taken by Democrats. This article is a study using secondary data from a survey conducted by the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) during the period 1 to 12 February 2012 with the population of all Indonesian citizens who have the rights to vote in elections when the survey was conducted. Number of samples taken ranged up to 2,050. Based on the sample, it is estimated margin of error of + / -2.2% at the 95% confidence level. It is concluded that the political change will continue in the 2014 election along with the negative sentiments from Indonesian people against politics and law enforcement today. Election results earlier in some parts of Indonesia showed a progressive trend increasing number of non-voters and swing voters. NasDem and Gerindra are quite prominent in voter mobilization through the air via mass media. Both attract Democrats’ swing voters whom are middle-class which are more intensively following the national news.

Presidential Versus Vice Presidential Home State Advantage: A Comparative Analysis of Electoral Significance, Causes, and Processes, 1884‐2008

This article compares the electoral significance, causes, and processes associated with presidential versus vice presidential home state advantages. Our analysis of presidential election returns from 1884 through 2008 demonstrates that presidential candidates generally receive a large, statistically significant home state advantage. However, vice presidential home state advantages are statistically negligible and conditioned on the interactive effect of political experience and state population. Furthermore, the results indicate that the mobilization of new voters primarily accounts for presidential home state advantage, while vice presidential home state advantage is mainly due to the conversion of existing voters. Although home state advantages do occur in presidential elections, according to our analysis, a presidential or vice presidential home state advantage has not changed the outcome of any presidential election since 1884.