The “shame” treatment raised turnout by +6.3 percentage points; the “pride” treatment raised turnout by +4.0 percentage points. We already know from Gerber et al. (2008) that social pressure can boost voter turnout. As part of Political Behavior‘s special issue on social pressure and turnout (read some background), Gerber et al. join forces again with [...]
Voting is like pornography. Non-voting, like pornography, is frowned upon, so folks try to keep it private. But once you threaten to publicize that private behavior, it changes. Two years ago, Gerber, Green, and Larimer (2008) shook up research on turnout with a stunning experimental result: You can raise turnout dramatically with a postcard. Not [...]
Conservatives are hard-working, organized, closed-minded, and emotionally stable. Liberals are lazy, disorganized, open-minded, and neurotic. Let’s see how the punditocracy spins that one. Yesterday I wrote about Mondak et al.’s recent APSR article about personality and political participation. On the very next page of the same issue of APSR, you’ll find a closely related article [...]
“For many Americans, there is no rational basis to suppose that one party is better than the other at managing the economy.” If that’s true, is our entire democratic process a farce? We know that partisanship influences economic evaluations. In survey after survey, we have found that Republicans and Democrats rate the economy differently, yet [...]
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 [...]
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