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Motivating Voter Turnout by Invoking the Self 22 Jul 2011 | 04:31 am
I find voter mobilization experiments fascinating. That’s why I write about them a lot (e.g. here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and...
Timing is Everything? Primacy and Recency Effects in Voter Mobilization Campaigns 21 Jul 2011 | 05:01 am
In recent years, political scientists have run a variety of field experiments to show exactly which methods of voter mobilization are most effective. However, those experiments have focused mostly on ...
Formal and Perceived Leadership Power in U.S. State Legislatures 16 Jul 2011 | 04:29 am
Those who study Congress have engaged in long arguments about the importance (or lack thereof) of Congressional leaders in influencing outcomes. Among others, see Cox and McCubbins 1993 and 2005, Kreh...
U.S. State Election Reform and Turnout in Presidential Elections 30 Jun 2011 | 04:54 am
If you move from one state to the next, you may find dramatic differences in election administration. Back in my home state of California, I registered as a permanent absentee voter. Prior to each ele...
Analyzing the Effect of Anti-Abortion U.S. State Legislation in the Post-Casey Era 29 Jun 2011 | 04:13 am
A few months ago, SPPQ published an article by Michael New asking a simple question: Do anti-abortion laws have any effect? It’s a good question. Although the number of abortions performed in the U.S....
The Party Faithful: Partisan Images, Candidate Religion, and the Electoral Impact of Party Identification 28 May 2011 | 04:50 am
American voters tend to vote for their party’s candidate. That’s not news. The question is, why? Political science has usually relied on three answers. The psychological approach says that voters supp...
An Experiment Testing the Relative Effectiveness of Encouraging Voter Participation by Inducing Feelings of Pride or Shame 4 Nov 2010 | 01:07 am
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 a...
Is There Backlash to Social Pressure? A Large-scale Field Experiment on Voter Mobilization 3 Nov 2010 | 01:14 am
In 2008, Gerber et al. published a pioneering study of mobilization. Using heavy-handed tactics, they found that they could shame people into voting (read more). Using heavy-handed tactics might be fi...
Affect, Social Pressure and Prosocial Motivation: Field Experimental Evidence of the Mobilizing Effects of Pride, Shame, and Publicizing Voting Behavi... 2 Nov 2010 | 01:00 am
Suppose a local newspaper planned to honor those who vote by listing their names in a post-election issue. Would you be more likely to vote? Now, suppose a local newspaper planned to shame those who s...
Public Accountability and Political Participation: Effects of Face-to-Face Feedback Intervention on Voter Turnout of Public Housing Residents 30 Oct 2010 | 04:41 am
Here’s a few things we know about voter turnout: The urban poor don’t vote. Voter turnout experiments don’t typically focus on non-voting populations like the urban poor. Turnout is lower in municipal...
