Electoral Turnout

Electoral Participation as Social Behavior

The recognition of the paradox of voting led some scholars to reinterpret benefits and costs in terms that are unrelated to outcomes of elections by assuming that people are motivated by social, ethical, or expressive considerations rather than narrow self-interest. In brief, ethical explanations claim that citizens vote out of a sense of civic duty, mobilization theories argue that people are motivated by political campaigns, while expressive explanations suggest that individuals are affirming their (group) identity. Proponents of these theories have not, however, explained why, if motivations are unrelated to election outcomes, people would be more likely to vote when their vote has more impact on the outcome (e.g., in a close race) or when more is at stake (see below).

An approach with more promise of overcoming the paradox of voting recognizes that voting benefits more people than just the individual voter and sees voters as social beings motivated in part—especially if they are of an altruistic disposition—by their obligations to groups with which they identify and responsive to the expectations and mobilizing efforts of members of those groups. This approach has gained prominence with recent research demonstrating that turnout is subject to socialization, learning, and habit formation, as shown by Eric Plutzer (2002). In addition, the value of this approach is in demonstrating that most voters acquire a habit of voting over time and that contextual factors such as the closeness of the race have a stronger impact on voters who have not yet acquired the habit of voting, as demonstrated by Mark Franklin (2004).

The fact that people differ in terms of whether their behavior is based on habit suggests that much earlier research into individual-level explanations of turnout variations, demonstrating the influence of sociodemographic factors (such as education, income, or age) and social factors (such as home ownership or church attendance), were focusing on factors that facilitated this learning process. A reconceptualization of the decision to vote into long-term (habitual) and short-term (variable) behavior shows promise of clarifying much that is currently confusing in the turnout literature.

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