Voter Turnout
A Social Theory of Political Participation

This book combines positive political theory, social network research and computational modeling, explaining why some people are more likely to vote than others.

Meredith Rolfe (Author)

9781107617988, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 22 August 2013

248 pages, 16 b/w illus. 4 maps 14 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.37 kg

"Voter Turnout: A Social Theory of Political Participation is an excellent book. I strongly recommend it to anyone studying voter turnout or who is interested more generally in empirically oriented modeling or the role of social interactions in aggregate behavior. Meredith Rolfe lays out a social theory of voters turnout that at every step is justified by and challenges data, making it both an admirably coherent account of how social interactions affect aggregate turnout and a superb case study not only in detailing the empirical implications of theoretical models, but also the use of empirics to inform theoretical development." - David A. Siegel, Florida State University, The Journal of Politics

This book develops and empirically tests a social theory of political participation. It overturns prior understandings of why some people (such as college-degree holders, churchgoers and citizens in national rather than local elections) vote more often than others. The book shows that the standard demographic variables are not proxies for variation in the individual costs and benefits of participation, but for systematic variation in the patterns of social ties between potential voters. Potential voters who move in larger social circles, particularly those including politicians and other mobilizing actors, have more access to the flurry of electoral activity prodding citizens to vote and increasing political discussion. Treating voting as a socially defined practice instead of as an individual choice over personal payoffs, a social theory of participation is derived from a mathematical model with behavioral foundations that is empirically calibrated and tested using multiple methods and data sources.

1. Introduction
2. Conditional choice
3. The social meaning of voting
4. Conditional cooperation
5. Conditional voters
6. The social theory of turnout
7. Education and high salience elections
8. Mobilization and turnout in low salience elections
9. Paradox lost.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Social & political philosophy [HPS]