Sense Of Civic Duty Research Articles

A call of duty in hard times: Duty to vote and the Spanish Economic Crisis

Although scarce, the literature addressing the effects of the economy on voter turnout and political attitudes has yielded mixed results. By using individual, longitudinal data from Spain—a country devastated by the Great Recession—our study illuminates how the latest economic crisis has impacted citizens’ perceptions of voting. We analyze how economic conditions and perceptions of the economy have transformed the belief that voting is a civic duty, which is one of the strongest attitudinal predictors of turnout. Our results suggest that hard times slightly weaken citizens’ sense of civic duty, particularly among the youngest. However, the adverse effects of the economic crisis are compensated by the positive effects of the electoral context, and as a consequence there is no aggregate decline in civic duty during the period examined (2010–2012).

The African National Congress’ post-Apartheid Politics: Prominence of Individual Personalities above Communications

The post-1994 General Elections ascendancy of the African National Congress (ANC) to state power entailed party evolution as a social system lest the curse of liberation movement popularity dislodgement with shift to ruling party politics. Transition from liberation movement to ruling political party is embedded with contradictions, paradoxes and contestations relating to organizational constitution with “individuals and assets as its elements” or “communications and actions”. Evidently, the ruling ANC has increasingly become synonymous with internal squabbles rooted in personalities and power mongering for both party and state. Post-1994 ANC organizational evolution appeared to lack a complementary autopoietic layer that defines systems of communications and actions, away from the nostalgic principle of democratic discipline founded in the allopoietic character of individuals and assets. Consequently, the post-1994 ANC sustained the liberation movement legacy that compromises state governance qualities of responsiveness, effectiveness, accountability, enduring civic duty, inclusivity and service of public interest, because individuals and actions are non-reproducible. Armed with the modernizing project apparatus, former President Mbeki sought for a departure of the conduct of party and state presidency from conventional wisdom prescribed to by former President Mandela, thereby entrenching a dreaded culture of slate political party voting with the appendage of the promise of state resources control and power politics patronage. This article identifies the 2007 Polokwane Elective Conference of the ANC as an important turning point in this political party’s anniversary “life story”; and, it concedes that the party has to consciously detest glorification of individuals and assets in order to evolve through communications and actions based on ideal political virtues, which would be transposed onto the state by instilling a sense of civic duty, shared ownership of state machinery and popular mobilization of the citizenry. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n15p630

Why is Turnout So Low in Switzerland? Comparing the Attitudes of Swiss and German Citizens Towards Electoral Democracy

Why is Turnout So Low in Switzerland? Comparing the Attitudes of Swiss and German Citizens Towards Electoral Democracy

Personality Traits and the Sense of Civic Duty

Recently, a burgeoning literature has developed around the idea that personality traits influence political attitudes and orientations. There has also been increasing recognition that orientations like the sense of civic duty exert a powerful influence on voting behavior. Despite the theoretical and empirical importance of civic duty, little research has investigated its antecedents. This article turns to individual personality traits as a potential explanation for why some people feel a stronger sense of civic duty than others. The analysis shows that a number of the Big Five traits shape an individual’s sense of civic duty, with Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Openness having statistically significant ( p < .05) effects. The effects of personality traits rival and, in some cases, exceed the influence of variables that have typically been used to explain the sense of duty, including income. In the end, this study provides new evidence that personality traits influence broad orientations toward political life.

Optimal taxation and growth with public goods and costly enforcement

This paper studies optimal direct and indirect taxation in an endogenous growth framework with a productive public good and costly tax collection. Optimal (growth-maximizing) tax rules are derived under exogenous collection costs. The optimal direct–indirect tax ratio is shown to be negatively related to the administrative costs of collecting these taxes, as documented in cross-country data. This result also holds under endogenous collection costs (with these costs inversely related to administrative spending on tax enforcement), but for these to generate significant effects on tax collection requires implausibly high degrees of efficiency in spending, or the allocation of a large fraction of resources to tax enforcement. Depending on how it is financed, the latter policy may entail adverse effects on growth. Improving ‘tax culture’ and the sense of civic duty through greater budgetary transparency may be a more effective policy to improve tax collection and promote economic growth.

A STRUCTURAL MODEL OF TURNOUT AND VOTING IN MULTIPLE ELECTIONS

This paper develops a unified approach to study participation and voting in multiple elections. The theoretical setting combines an uncertain-voter model of turnout with a spatial model of voting behavior. We apply our framework to the study of turnout and voting in US Presidential and Congressional elections. We structurally estimate the model using individual-level data for the 2000 elections, and quantify the relationships between observed individual characteristics and unobserved citizens’ ideological preferences, information, and civic duty. We then use the estimated model, which replicates the patterns of abstention, selective abstention, split-ticket voting, and straight-ticket voting observed in the data, to assess the effects of policies that may increase citizens’ information and sense of civic duty on their turnout and voting behavior.

Personality traits, political attitudes and the propensity to vote

This article examines the link between personality traits, political attitudes and the propensity to vote in elections, using an Internet panel survey conducted in two Canadian provinces at the time of the 2008 federal election and the subsequent provincial elections. It first establishes that the two most proximate attitudes that shape one's propensity to vote are political interest and sense of civic duty. The article then look at specific personality traits (altruism, shyness, efficacy and conflict avoidance) that could affect level of political interest, civic duty and the propensity to vote in elections. In the last part of the analysis, a model is proposed and tested, according to which the impact of personality traits is indirect, being mediated by interest and duty. The article shows that the data are consistent with such an interpretation.

Response to Franz, Freedman, Goldstein, and Ridout

D uring presidential elections, most voters in contested states face a barrage of campaign ads. While these commercials are meant to persuade and not necessarily mobilize voters, there are ample theoretical grounds to suspect they stimulate turnout by informing viewers and activating their sense of civic duty (Freedman, Franz, and Goldstein 2004) or by signaling a competitive election (Cox and Munger 1989). The behavioral consequences of exposure to campaign ads is interesting in its own right, but important political and policy issues hang in the balance as well. Candidates and their consultants have reason to wonder the extent to which their advertising spurs turnout as they allocate resources. Proposals to regulate campaign financing or campaigns themselves inevitably meet the objection that any reduction in the volume of campaigns will lead to a less informed, interested, and active electorate (Ansolabehere and Snyder 2000). Our position is that presidential campaign ads have a minimal impact on voter turnout. In their response, Franz, Freedman, Goldstein and Ridout (FFGR) seem equivocal on this point. Their analysis of individual-level survey data (Freedman, Franz, and Goldstein 2004) produced very large effects. We have nothing against survey data per se, but we are particularly cautious about using the nonvalidated vote item as a dependent variable given respondents’ propensity to misremember or exaggerate. That is not necessarily a fatal error: a recent paper by Ashworth and Clinton (2007) that controls for potential endogeneity of ad exposure and turnout concludes that presidential campaign ads in 2000 had little effect on survey respondents’ professed intention of voting. Indeed, FFGR’s aggregate analyses generate an array of much smaller effects. They point out that their forthcoming book reports that exposure to 10,000 campaign ads increases turnout by a meager 0.3 percentage points, leading them to back away from their survey results, describing them as the product of ‘‘irrational exuberance’’. If that is their position, then both sides now agree: presidential advertising does not stimulate turnout (Franz et al. 2008, p. 265). However, FFGR caution against inferring that advertising’s effect is ‘‘universal or consistent across election years.’’ Perhaps, but their essay provides no evidence about any election other than the 2000 election. We look forward to applying our natural experiments framework to other elections when the data gathered by FFGR become publicly available. We expect to continue to find that presidential ads have a small impact on turnout, as they do not engage voters personally and rarely encourage viewers to vote (Franz et al. 2008, p. 265).

A Structural Model of Turnout and Voting in Multiple Elections, Third Version

This paper develops a unified approach to study participation and voting in multiple elections. The theoretical setting combines an uncertain-voter model of turnout with a spatial model of voting behavior. We apply our framework to the study of turnout and voting in U.S. presidential and congressional elections. We structurally estimate the model using individual-level data for the 2000 elections, and quantify the relationships between observed individual characteristics and unobserved citizens' ideological preferences, information, and civic duty. We then use the estimated model, which replicates the patterns of abstention, selective abstention, split-ticket voting, and straight-ticket voting observed in the data, to assess the effects of policies that may increase citizens' information and sense of civic duty on their turnout and voting behavior.

A Structural Model of Turnout and Voting in Multiple Elections, Fourth Version

This paper develops a unified approach to study participation and voting in multiple elections. The theoretical setting combines an “uncertain-voter” model of turnout with a spatial model of voting behavior. We apply our framework to the study of turnout and voting in U.S. presidential and congressional elections. We structurally estimate the model using individual-level data for the 2000 elections, and quantify the relationships between observed individual characteristics and unobserved citizens’ ideological preferences, information, and civic duty. We then use the estimated model, which replicates the patterns of abstention, selective abstention, split-ticket voting, and straight-ticket voting observed in the data, to assess the effects of policies that may increase citizens’ information and sense of civic duty on their turnout and voting behavior.

The Theoretical and Empirical Studies of Voter's Turnout in Japan

I IntroductionVoter's turnout for the House of Representatives are recently on a downward trend. The turnout rates for the House of Councilors are lower and, as illustrated in Fig. 1, it reached as low as 44.5% in 1995.What people are non-voters? What factors make them non-voters? This essay aims at introducing current works of voter's turnout of Japanese political scientists into non-political scientists who are interested in electoral politics.II Basic Approaches to Turnout and the Contexts in which political Actors Play(1) Campaign mobilization by political parties, candidates, and interest groupsCampaign mobilization in Japan takes three forms: (a) mass electoral campaign, (b) organizational mobilization, (c) personal contacts by candidates and their supporters. As (b) and (c) are empirically more important than (a), this approach is often called“political (or social) network”approach.(2) Political involvement approachPolitical involvement is psychological orientation to politics. The more people are involved in politics, the more likely they are to vote. Such psychological variables as political interest, political efficacy, and sense of civic duty are typical ones. Among them sense of civic duty is often found most effective. As they are usually fostered through voter's socialization process, this can be called“socialization”approach.(3) Attractive choice approachWhen voters find a party (candidate) distinctively more attractive than the rest of the parties (candidates), they are perhaps more likely to vote. Rational choice model of voting is a special case of this approach, in which in terms of issue positions voters can differentiate a party from the rest of parties.(4) Social and political contextsWe cannot ignore the impact of contextual effects on turnout. Some contextual effects are introduced here.(i) The competitiveness of electionsThe competitiveness of election can raise turnout. When an election is competitive, voters pay more attention to the development of the race, and perhaps they are more likely to vote.(ii) Cost of voting“Cost of voting”can be referred on an aggregate level. Here the following three factors are examined:“double election”; the climate of poll day; institutional factors.(5) Political resources and social attributes of individual votersVoting requires the least effort among all forms of political participation. Therefore, the function of political resources is paid least attention in this essay. Individual social attributes are considered as surrogates for political and psychological factors, except for a few with their own function.Age (or political experience) is an example. As people grow older, they become familiar with political process and institutions around them.III Constructing Voter's Turnout ModelsThe reasons why voters decide not to vote are often so diverse that a single approach or a contextual effect cannot explain them. Usually, a turnout model is constructed from most of (or all of) the factors discussed so far.(i) Even such a theory-oriented model as rational choice model ofvoting utilizes political involvement approach which is supposed to be far from rational choice theory.(ii) Empirically-oriented models intentionally synthesize all approaches and contextual effects into their own models. Political involvement factors are very often found the most effective of all. Two models (Kabashima's and Miyake-Nishizawa's), among many, are cited as examples.IV Some critical problems with empirical dataAs most studies are based on national sample surveys, their dependent variables are usually reported votes for elections. It is well-known that reported turnouts by survey data are higher than the official counts. In case aggregate data are used, independent variables are under too many restrictions.

Old Myth into New History: The Building Blocks of Liang Qichao's "New History"

In the first years of the twentieth century, the prominent radical intellectual Liang Qichao argued that China needed a that would constitute a history of the rather than court annals. This history would be evolutionary, and Liang rooted the origins of the Chinese people in the ancient myths of sage-kings. Liang mapped stages of progress (from primitive tribal forms of social organization to feudal-aristocratic to the centralized monarchy) onto Huang Di (the Yellow Emperor), Yao-Shun, and Yu. Both the three ages theory of the New Text school and social Darwinism provided Liang with a universal framework for explaining the course of Chinese history, but he faced difficulties in explaining why Chinese and European history were different. Liang's attitudes toward the Qin unification were particularly ambivalent: on the one hand it represented a progressive step at the time but on the other it prevented later development. Liang's early histories emphasized China's originary moment, based on his reworkings of the sage-king myths. What made China historically distinct, however, was its early shift to centralized monarchy – whether seen in Yu's founding of the Xia dynasty or the later Qin unification – and its to further progress. Liang transferred sacrality from the sage-kings to the nation itself. In this sense the sage-kings were desacralized, demoted from their positions as culture heroes and founders of civilization to representatives of stages of historical development. For Liang, historical development was based on objective factors such as geography and the struggles between competing groups. However, the Chinese nation was defined most clearly through a process of political unification, and this unification in turn partly depended on human decisions. In any case, Liang defined historical progress largely in terms of the development of the polity. China's failure to develop beyond imperial forms and monarchism to the nation-state and democracy could be excused. After all, the nation-state and democracy were new in Europe as well. Liang also emphasized that China's historical success had meant it faced few competitors; without competitors, it could not develop. For Liang, this was a particular worry because it left the Chinese people politically immature. Unchallenged, the monarchy could and did deprive the people of their freedom, their rights, and even their sense of civic duty. Liang's great project of the late Qing years thus became the creation of the citizen. Nonetheless, we cannot conclude that his historiography was simply a coded form of political propaganda. Rather, his historical and political views influenced and reinforced one another. Liang's contributions to modern Chinese historiography have long been acknowledged. His historiographical project, however, was beset with tensions. Liang could reconcile his faith in progress with a reality of stagnation (as he saw it) only with difficulty. Liang also wrestled with the contradictions between determinism and voluntarism. And by turning the into the subject of history, Liang had to wrestle with the problems of defining that nation, of discovering what was new and old about it and what marked its continuity through time, and of determining what properties it held in common with other nations (universal traits) and what properties made it distinct (particular traits). In the end, much of what made China unique, for Liang, was a kind of byproduct of its movement through universal historical stages. He destroyed the myth of a golden age, but valorized the evolution of the Chinese nation. Using many of the building blocks of the old myth-history, Liang provided a new narrative structure for the Chinese nation.

Politics in the trenches: citizens, politicians, and the fate of democracy

Ask most Americans what they think of politics and you'll likely get an earful. With suspicion and distrust of public servants running high, many citizens seem dispirited by the very process that has made the United States a showcase for democracy. Now ask Tom Volgy. This former mayor of a major western city, who is also a political scientist, contends that most elected officials are the very opposite of what the public thinks: honest, hardworking people whose real work goes unnoticed by most of their constituents and the media. Volgy has interviewed more than 300 elected officials mayors, city council members, legislators from all over the United States to offer a decidedly contrarian view of politics. He explores the lives and working conditions of elected officials at the local level the area of democracy closest to the public to show that officeholders are for the most part average citizens, not the slick lawyers or political pros we usually imagine them to be. Most are motivated by a sense of civic duty, and they often work for token salaries, yet once elected they give up their personal lives and fall prey to every conceivable brickbat of public and media outrage. In Politics in the Trenches, Volgy shows what really happens behind the scenes of government. He contrasts perception with reality regarding the rewards and perks of office. He examines the process of experimentation in the political laboratory and shows how the news media distort it. He provides a case study of homelessness to illustrate the system's constraints and limitations. And he offers a chapter on a typical week in office that will be an eye-opener for most readers. Although admittedly there are many flaws in the democratic political process, observes Volgy, all are correctable as long as citizens believe in the essential worth of the system itself. His book offers a fresh perspective on democratic governance and tackles tough issues such as campaign finance reform, urging citizens to understand the process before they condemn its players out of hand. More than that, this is a call to action, warning us that we could lose true democracy if we don't get involved.

At Peace with all Their Neighbors: Catholics and Catholicism in the National Capital, 1787-1860.

In 1790, two events marked important points in the development of two young American institutions - Congress decided that the new nation's seat of government would be on the banks of the Potomac, and John Carroll of Maryland was consecrated as America's first Catholic bishop. This coincidence of events signalled the unexpectedly important role that Maryland's Catholics, many of them by then fifth- and sixth-generation Americans, were play in the growth and early government of the national capital. In this book, William W. Warner explores how Maryland's Catholics drew upon their long-standing traditions - advocacy of separation of church and state, a sense of civic duty, and a determination to live at peace with all their neighbors, in Bishop Carroll's phrase - take a leading role in the early government, financing, and building of the new capital. Beginning with brief histories of the area's first Catholic churches and the establishment of Georgetown College, At Peace with All Their Neighbors explains the many reasons behind the Protestant majority's acceptance of Catholicism in the national capital in an age often marked by religious intolerance. Shortly after the capital moved from Philadelphia in 1800, Catholics held the principal positions in the city government and were also major landowners, property investors, and bankers. In the decade before the 1844 riots over religious education erupted in Philadelphia, the municipal government of Georgetown gave public funds for a Catholic school and Congress granted land in Washington for a Catholic orphanage. This book closes with a remarkable account of how the Washington community, Protestants and Catholics alike, withstood the concentrated efforts of the virulently anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic American nativists and the Know-Nothing Party in the last two decades before the Civil War. This chronicle of Washington's Catholic community and its major contributions the growth of the nations' capital will be of value for everyone interested in the history of Washington, D.C., Catholic history, and the history of religious toleration in America.

Long-Run Lamentations: Braudel on France

Fernand Braudel treats the history of France incidentally in his celebrated La Mediterrane'e et le monde mediterraneen l'epoque de Philippe 11 and in his Civilisation materielle, economie et capitalisme and directly in his recent L'identite de la France, part of which appeared posthumously. He came to the latter project with both delectation and trepidation. His history of France was the first major enterprise that Braudel freely chose to undertake: the other works were commissions in one sense or another.1 Inspired by sense of civic duty and kind of filial piety, intensified by the guilt accruing from his half-century of intellectual expatriation,2 this project was the chance for him to demonstrate his love of France, a demanding and complicated that he compared to Michelet's. But this very passion provoked malaise in the historian. Passion was, to be sure, one mode of approach. The native son understands his history almost instinctively, the detours, the twists and turns, the originalities, the weaknesses.3 This visceral demarche was, however, replete with pitfalls: complaisance, superficiality, trivialization. Braudel aimed to write first as professional historian preoccupied with the exigencies of the craft and only afterward as citizen and patriot.4 Yet it is clear that he himself worried about sustaining the separationwitness his reiterated renunciations and antiseptic engagements (e.g., For I mean to speak of France as if it were another country), undercut repeatedly by his tendency to cast the world in binary terms: nous vis-a-vis the others, bit like the sportscaster of an international match unable to conceal in myriad small ways his predilection for his nation's team.S As professional historian celebrated for codifying the new history, Braudel had other reasons to fret about doing history of France. The very logic of his

Participation in Public Interest Groups

This article tests the exchange theory of interest group membership and finds that it applies to the members of four public interest groups: the League of Women Voters, the Conservative Caucus, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Common Cause. Survey data are used to determine the incentives for affiliation, membership renewal, and activism. The survey results demonstrate that public interest group members are like the members of traditional special interest groups in that they join in order to receive certain selective benefits. As expected, those benefits are more often purposive than material or sohdary. However, the member's responses indicate that there are at least three different types of purposive benefits that are salient for them: namely, a feeling of efficacy, a policy commitment, and a sense of civic duty.

The Role of Komsomol and Young Pioneer Organizations in Instilling Ideological Steadfastness, A Sense of Civic Duty, and Conscious Discipline in Schoolchildren

Lenin's ideas on communist indoctrination permeate all Party documents on the leadership of the Young Pioneer movement, on the activity of the children's organization. Under the direction of the Party and its leadership, the Leninist Komsomol and the Young Pioneer Organization, together with the school, the family, and the Soviet community, are actively participating in the resolution of problems relating to the ideological -moral formation and comprehensive development of young citizens, noted the decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU On the Fiftieth Anniversary of the All-Union V. I. Lenin Young Pioneer (Pravda, March 26, 1972). This Party document outlines ways of further enhancing the role of the Young Pioneer Organization in dealing with the important tasks of the Soviet general-education school. Fulfilling Lenin's behests, the Komsomol and the Young Pioneer Organization are striving to justify the Party's confidence and are helping to raise a generation of educated, diligent, ...

Attitudes of Canadian peace groups

Peace Research Institute were compared with a national sample of adults in 1962 and found to be relatively high in educational and economic levels, internationally responsible, welfare-minded, nondogmatic, and noncynical (Laulicht and Alcock, 1966). When peace-seeking adults were compared with war-oriented people in Japan, they were found to be more socially oriented, higher in their sense of civic duty, more politically active, and more liberal in their political ideology (Kuroda, 1964). Frank and Nash (1965) found that peace activists in the United States were stable and

The Illustrious American: The Development of Nationalism in Venezuela under Antonio Guzmán Blanco

NE OF THE most interesting developments in Latin America was the growth of nationalism after the achievement of independence. While the vast majority of people were little more than pawns, the major power groups such as the church, the military, landed aristocracies, and political leaders were not always in agreement as to the nature or objectives of the new states. The differences among the leaders aggravated the underlying obstacles facing the establishment of democratic governments and a sense of civic duty above narrow group interests. Only gradually did some new states start to form a sense of patriotism and national identity among the various races and classes within the new nations. Hardly a century later, other empires in Africa and Asia have spawned dozens of new states hardly better prepared for independence than those which sprang from Spain and Portugal. This essay will sketch the major developments which gave substance to Venezuelan cultural nationalism as it emerged into the present century. The central figures in this drama are the Liberal Party, in formation since the 1840's, and Guzman Blanco, one of Latin America's most colorful caudillos.1 After separation from Bolivar's Gran Colombia in 1830, Venezuela enjoyed twenty years of relative peace before it plunged into revolution. Increasing in destructiveness, the fighting among factions and rival classes reached a highpoint during the Federal War (1858 to 1863). The victors formed the United States of Venezuela out of the ruins. The liberals, who now championed federalism, had virtually destroyed the conservative leaders of the early republic and the landed aristocracy led by General Jose Antonio Pafez. Among them General Juan Crisostomo Falcon assumed leadership, but he soon formed a dislike for politics. Young and debonaire Guzman