Beyond Opportunity Costs: Campaign Messages, Anger and Turnout among the Unemployed (original) (raw)
Related papers
Economic Discontent as a Mobilizer: Unemployment and Voter Turnout
Published scholarship argues that a poor economy depresses voter participation in the U.S. This troubling result suggests that incumbents are "under-penalized" for bad economic performance. We challenge this conclusion theoretically and empirically. Theoretically, we argue that a worsening economy has a disruptive effect that prods worried citizens to voice concern and seek remedies. Empirically, we analyze county level data and find that, contrary to earlier studies, higher unemployment rates in fact stimulate more people to vote. We show that the effect is not the result of heightened electoral competition when unemployment is high. The relationship displays a partisan asymmetry in which Republican candidates are especially harmed by higher unemployment. The results also indicate that studies of economic voting need to consider the role of turnout in connecting economic performance to the incumbent's vote share.
Election Night’s Alright for Fighting: The Role of Emotions in Political Participation
A large literature has established a persistent association between the skills and resources citizens possess and their likelihood of participating in politics. However, the short-term motivational forces that cause citizens to employ those skills and expend resources in one election but not the next have only recently received attention. Findings in political psychology suggest specific emotions may play an important role in mobilization, but the question of ''which emotions play what role?'' remains an important area of debate. Drawing on cognitive appraisal theory and the Affective Intelligence model, we predict that anger, more than anxiety or enthusiasm, will mobilize. We find evidence for the distinctive influence of anger in a randomized experiment, a national survey of the 2008 electorate, and in pooled American National Election Studies from 1980 to 2004. no later than one year after the publication date. 2 The figure takes the average of ''proud'' and ''hopeful'' responses toward both candidates as a measure of general enthusiasm and compares it to the results for anger and anxiety. The NES item mentions fear, but we use fear and anxiety interchangeably, consistent with others .
Negative campaigning, emotions and political participation
This paper examines the role emotions play in mediating the effect of campaigns on electoral behavior. We argue that election campaigns can shape voters' emotions about the parties which, in turn affect peoples likelihood of turning out. Specifically, we hypothesize that voters who receive campaign communications that make them feel enthusiastic about their preferred party are more likely to turn out, while those who experience anger towards the preferred party or out-parties are more likely to withdraw from politics and not vote. In the middle ground, we expect people who are anxious towards an out-party to increase their likelihood of turning out while anxiety towards the preferred party is not seen to affect turnout intentions. To test these propositions, we employ both experimental and panel data. We conduct a laboratory experiment, using the Dynamic Process Tracing Environment software, in the context of the 2010 British general elections. This experimental setup allows us to examine the role of emotions in the electoral process in a fully controlled environment, and thus offers a distinctive contribution to our understanding of the psychological mechanisms that drive turnout. Finally, by using panel data we replicate the results obtained in the experiment and increase external validity offering further support for the theory.
Political Behavior, 1979
A clarification of the effects of unemployment on political participation attitudes and behaviors is developed by contrasting the effect of unemployment experience across categories of socioeconomic status. Data on employed and unemployed heads of household are drawn from the 1976 University of Michigan national presidential election survey. The results indicate both main and interaction effects. Regardless of employment status, lower socioeconomic status respondents are less committed to voting, feel less efficacious, are less interested in polities, and are less politically active than persons of higher status. However, participation attitudes and behaviors arc more adversely affected by unemployment experience among those of lower than higher status. Among higher status respondents, attitudes toward self (i.e., feelings of efficacy) and political interest-but not political activity or attitude toward the importance of participation-are altered by unemployment. The unemployment literature contains mixed portraits of unemployment experience and its implications for political participation attitudes and behaviors. Some studies indicate that being unemployed induces withdrawal from political affairs. Other research suggests that unemployment sharpens political interest and activity. Finally, several An earlier version oft.his paper was presented at the Southwestern Sociological meetings in Ft. Worth, Texas, March 1979.
Economic Performance, Job Insecurity and Electoral Choice
British Journal of Political Science, 2002
The mass political economy literature concentrates on egocentric and sociotropic evaluations of short-term economic performance. Scant attention is paid to other economic concerns people may h a ve. In a neo-liberal economic climate characterized by a downsized labor market and the retrenchment of government welfare entitlements, one such widely-publicized concern is job insecurity. This article shows that job insecurity i s a n o vel form of discontent that is independent of the retrospective evaluations of short-term performance that are the stu of the mainstream mass political economy literature. At the same time, the political e ects of job insecurity are distinctive. In a multinomial probit model of electoral choice in the 1996 U.S. presidential election, job insecurity is associated with support for the third-party candidate, Ross Perot, but, contrary to conventional wisdom, has no implications for turnout. Traditional retrospective e v aluations of economic performance explain the major-party v ote and abstention.
Employment, Wages, and Voter Turnout
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2013
Using county-level data across several decades, and various OLS and TSLS models, we find that higher local wages and employment lower turnout in elections for governor, senator, US Congress and state House of Representatives, but have no effect on presidential turnout. We also find that the share of people voting in one election but not in another on the same ballot increases as local labor market conditions improve. We argue that these results are most consistent with information-based models of voting, and use individual level panel data to show that increased employment lowers media usage and political knowledge. (JEL D72, D83, J22, J31, R23)
Keeping Up with the Joneses: The Interplay of Personal and Collective Evaluations in Voter Turnout
Political Behavior, 2008
Do citizens turnout to vote because of changes in their personal financial situation or are they influenced by the nation's economic performance? Previous research on this question is far from united. We attempt to unify the disparate literature on the effects of pocketbook and sociotropic evaluations on voter turnout in midterm and presidential elections. Our analysis of ANES data from 1978 to 2004, based on a reference-dependent model of voter turnout, indicates that both pocketbook and sociotropic considerations affect individuals' decision of whether to vote in midterm elections. Those who perceive that over the last year their own financial situation has improved relative to the economy are less likely to vote than those who view the economy as outperforming their own financial situation. Keywords Voter turnout Á Sociotropic Á Pocketbook Á Economic status The disconnect between pocketbook concerns of ordinary Americans and the preoccupations of their politicians…has yet to grow into a political wave that could sweep significant numbers of lawmakers from power next year, but both parties face risks if they fail to pivot their attention to economic issues.
Changing Financial Circumstances and Voter Turnout
The positive effect of financial circumstances on an individual’s probability of voting remains one of the few areas of consensus in the voter turnout literature. However, while the literature agrees upon such an effect between individuals, the effect of changing financial circumstances within individuals has rarely been considered. I offer two competing hypotheses. First, that the within effect is the same as the between effect, i.e. positive. Second, that the within effect is opposite to the between effect, i.e. negative, as suggested by the grievance theory of the social movements literature. By using panel data that covers five UK general elections, I test the effect of variation in self-reported financial circumstances and self-reported retrospective and prospective financial change. I find strong evidence of a negative effect, which supports the latter hypothesis. However, this effect is confounded by partisan attitudes. I go on to show that, for the minority of citizens who claim to support the incumbent party, there is an opposite, positive effect of better or improving financial circumstances. These results not only highlight the stark differences between within and between effects in political behavior but also suggest that, as the number of individuals with affinity to the governing (or any) party falls, the grievance model of voting participation looks to become more widespread.
Voter Turnout and the Labor Market
Using county level data from 1969-200 and various OLS and TSLS models, we find that increases in local per capita earnings and employment lowers voter turnout in gubernatorial and Senate elections but has not effect on Presidential turnout. We present a model in which risk-averse agents vote only if sufficiently informed about political candidates. When agents work more, as they do in periods of high local wages and employment, they devote less time to information acquisition, are less informed and thus vote less. This negative effect should be smaller in elections, such as that for the President, where information is so ubiquitous that reductions in political attentiveness have little effect on uncertainty. Consistent with the model's predictions, we find using individual data from several waves of the American National Election Study (ANES) we find that: less informed voters, and especially political moderates, are less likely to vote; uncertainty is smaller in Presidential as opposed to other elections; and that, voters' accessing of media, political knowledge and interest in politics vary negatively with changes in employment.