Why Bother?
Rethinking Participation in Elections and Protests

Using surveys, experiments, and fieldwork from several countries, this book tests a new theory of participation in elections and protests.

S. Erdem Aytaç (Author), Susan C. Stokes (Author)

9781108465946, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 10 January 2019

172 pages, 12 b/w illus. 28 tables 6 exercises
22.8 x 15.2 x 1 cm, 0.25 kg

'The theoretical framework developed in this book gives students of political participation new tools to think about how these macrolevel factors influence individual decisions to vote and join protests … This book will undoubtedly become a classic in the political participation literature.' Miguel Carreras, Perspectives on Politics

Why do vote-suppression efforts sometimes fail? Why does police repression of demonstrators sometimes turn localized protests into massive, national movements? How do politicians and activists manipulate people's emotions to get them involved? The authors of Why Bother? offer a new theory of why people take part in collective action in politics, and test it in the contexts of voting and protesting. They develop the idea that just as there are costs of participation in politics, there are also costs of abstention - intrinsic and psychological but no less real. That abstention can be psychically costly helps explain real-world patterns that are anomalies for existing theories, such as that sometimes increases in costs of participation are followed by more participation, not less. The book draws on a wealth of survey data, interviews, and experimental results from a range of countries, including the United States, Britain, Brazil, Sweden, and Turkey.

1. Introduction: rethinking political participation
2. Theories of voter participation: a review and a new approach
3. Testing the costly abstention theory of turnout
4. Theories of protest participation: a review and a new approach
5. Testing the costly abstention theory of protest participation
6. The emotional origins of collective action
7. Conclusions: criticisms, extensions, and democratic theory.

Subject Areas: Demonstrations & protest movements [JPWF], Comparative politics [JPB], Sociology [JHB]