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Showing papers on "Voting behavior published in 2003"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examined the effect of corruption on people's attitudes toward government and found that citizens in countries with higher levels of corruption express more negative evaluations of the performance of the political system and exhibit lower levels of trust in civil servants.
Abstract: Using surveys conducted in sixteen mature and newly established democracies around the globe, this study examines the effect of corruption on people's attitudes toward government. The analysis demonstrates that citizens in countries with higher levels of corruption express more negative evaluations of the performance of the political system and exhibit lower levels of trust in civil servants. However, the results also show that the negative effect of corruption on evaluations of the political system is significantly attenuated among supporters of the incumbent political authorities. These findings provide strong and systematic evidence that informal political practices, especially those that compromise important democratic principles, should be considered important indicators of political system performance. Moreover, they imply that, while corruption is a powerful determinant of political support across widely varying political, cultural, and economic contexts, it does not uniformly diminish support for political institutions across all segments of the electorate.

1,011 citations


Posted Content
TL;DR: The authors conducted a field experiment in Benin to investigate the impact of clientelism on voting behavior and found that female voters tend to prefer "national" candidates, especially when they run on public policy platforms.
Abstract: I conducted a field experiment in Benin to investigate the impact of clientelism on voting behavior. In collaboration with four political parties involved in the 2001 presidential elections, clientelist and broad public policy platforms were designed and run in twenty randomly selected villages of an average of 756 registered voters. Even after controlling for ethnic affiliation, I find that clientelist platforms have significant effects on voting behavior. The effect was strongest for incumbent and for "local" candidates. The evidence indicates that female voters tend to prefer "national" candidates, especially when they run on public policy platforms. In contrast, male voters tend to prefer "local" candidates especially when they run on clientelist platforms.

641 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper conducted a field experiment in Benin to investigate the impact of clientelism on voting behavior and found that clientelist messages have positive and significant effect in all regions and for all types of candidates.
Abstract: The author conducted a field experiment in Benin to investigate the impact of clientelism on voting behavior. In collaboration with four political parties involved in the 2001 presidential elections, clientelist and broad public policy platforms were designed and run in twenty randomly selected villages of an average of 756 registered voters. Using the survey data collected after the elections, the author estimated the effect of each type of message by comparing voting behavior in the villages exposed to clientelism or public policy messages (treatment groups) with voting behavior in the other villages (control groups). The author found that clientelist messages have positive and significant effect in all regions and for all types of candidates. The author also found that public policy messages have a positive and significant effect in the South but a negative and significant effect in the North. In addition, public policy messages seem to hurt incumbents as well as regional candidates. Finally, the evidence indicates that female voters tend to have stronger preference for public policy platforms than male voters.

546 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper employed an online survey of 442 politically interested Web users during the 2000 presidential election to examine the extent to which relying on the Web for political information influe, and found that the majority of the users relied on the web for information flow during the election.
Abstract: This study employed an online survey of 442 politically interested Web users during the 2000 presidential election to examine the extent to which relying on the Web for political information influe...

191 citations


Book
28 Sep 2003
TL;DR: In this paper, Yi Feng combines political and economic analyses to study the effects of political institutions on economic performance, and examines the political determinants of economic growth, and specifically the controversial question of the relationship between democracy and quality of life.
Abstract: In this book, Yi Feng combines political and economic analyses to study the effects of political institutions on economic performance. Traditionally, political scientists disregard details of economic conditions, while economists may not take into consideration a systematic explanation of political regimes. The growing interest in the interplay of political and economic systems, spurred by the political democratization and economic liberalization evident in many countries over the last twenty years, merits this new perspective.The book examines the political determinants of economic growth, and, specifically, the controversial question of the relationship between democracy and quality of life. Feng systematically studies three variables of a political system -- political freedom, political stability, and policy certainty -- and relates them to economic development. He examines the political factors that may affect patterns of growth directly or indirectly.Combining theory and country-specific case studies, Democracy, Governance, and Economic Performance demonstrates that political institutions and conditions do matter in economic growth. After establishing a theoretical foundation, Feng tests it by examining the direct effects of the three key political variables on economic growth and the indirect effects of democracy in terms of other variables (political instability, inflation, investment, education, income distribution, property rights, and population growth). He concludes by considering the policy implications of these results.

177 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors compared survey results with the voting outcome of a Corvallis, Oregon, referendum to fund a riverfront improvement project through increased property taxes and found that survey responses match the actual voting outcome and mean willingness to pay (WTP) estimates based on the two are not statistically different.

166 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine voting by a board designed to mitigate conflicts of interest between privately informed insiders and owners and conclude that boards with a majority of trustworthy but uninformed "watchdog" agents can implement institutionally preferred policies.
Abstract: We examine voting by a board designed to mitigate conflicts of interest between privately informed insiders and owners. Our model demonstrates that, as argued by researchers and the business press, boards with a majority of trustworthy but uninformed "watchdog" agents can implement institutionally preferred policies. Our laboratory experiments strongly support this conclusion. Our model also highlights the necessity of penalties on insiders when there is dissension among board members. However, penalties for dissent appeared to have little impact on the experimental outcomes.

130 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck1
TL;DR: In this paper, Katz and Lazarsfeld's Filter Hypothesis is examined and corroborated using comparable national election studies from Britain, Spain, United States and West Germany, with comparable results from the United Kingdom, Spain and the United States.
Abstract: In recent years, both mass communication and personal communication have attracted increased interest as sources of persuasive information which influence individual voting decisions. However, few efforts have so far been made to investigate how mass communication and personal communication interact with regard to electoral decision making. Katz and Lazarsfeld's ‘filter hypothesis’ maintains that personal communication mediates the influence of mass communication on individual voters, reinforcing or blocking the impact of media information, depending on the evaluative implications of that information and on the political composition of voters' discussant networks. This hypothesis is examined and corroborated here, using comparable national election studies from Britain, Spain, the United States and West Germany.

127 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a reflection-reflexion model is presented that describes how these blocks combine to produce a given political attitude as a function of goals, primes, expertise, and inherent conflict in considerations relevant to the attitude.
Abstract: Our understanding of political phenomena, including political attitudes and sophistication, can be enriched by incorporating the theories and tools of cognitive neuroscience—in particular, the cognitive neuroscience of nonconscious habitual cognition (akin to bicycle riding). From this perspective, different types of informational “building blocks” can be construed from which different types of political attitudes may arise. A reflection-reflexion model is presented that describes how these blocks combine to produce a given political attitude as a function of goals, primes, expertise, and inherent conflict in considerations relevant to the attitude. The ways in which neuroimaging methods can be used to test hypotheses of political cognition are reviewed.

124 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Ronny Razin1
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on strategic voting behavior when both an election and a signaling motivation affect voters' behavior and analyze a subset of symmetric equilibria in which strategies are symmetric to candidates' names and private signals.
Abstract: In this paper we focus on strategic voting behavior when both an election and a signaling motivation affect voters' behavior. We analyze a model of elections with two candidates competing on a one-dimensional policy space. Voters are privately and imperfectly informed about a common shock affecting the electorate's preferences. Candidates are assumed to choose policy in response to information gleaned from election results and according to exogenous factors that may lead to polarization in candidates' policy choices. We analyze a subset of symmetric equilibria in which strategies are symmetric to candidates' names and private signals (CSS equilibria). We show that signaling and election motivations pull voters to vote in different directions. We provide conditions that show the relation between the amount of information aggregated in the election and the motivation that influences voting behavior the most. Finally, we show that when candidates are responsive and polarized, all CSS equilibria are inefficient in the limit.

BookDOI
Stuti Khemani1
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compare the impact of political variables on two types of intergovernmental transfers to states in the Indian federation over a period of time, 1972-95, and show that transfers, whose regional distribution is determined by political agents, usually provide greater resources to state governments that are politically affiliated with the national ruling party and are important in maximizing the party's representation in the national legislature.
Abstract: Recently there has been a surge in international empirical evidence that national policymakers allocate resources across regions based on political considerations, in addition to any normative considerations of equity and efficiency. In order to mitigate these political compulsions, several federations around the world have attempted to create independent constitutional bodies that are responsible for determining federal transfers to subnational jurisdictions. The author tests whether constitutional rules indeed make a difference in curbing political influence by contrasting the impact of political variables on two types of intergovernmental transfers to states in the Indian federation over a period of time, 1972-95. The pattern of evidence shows that transfers, whose regional distribution is determined by political agents, usually provide greater resources to state governments that are politically affiliated with the national ruling party and are important in maximizing the party's representation in the national legislature. But the political effect on statutory transfers, determined by an independent agency with constitutional authority, is strikingly contrary, with greater resources going to unaffiliated state governments. The author argues that this contrasting evidence indicates that constitutional rules indeed restrict the extent to which partisan politics can affect resources available to subnational governments.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the dominant, and predominantly negative, discourses around young people's political participation, or supposed lack of it, and explore the ways in which a redefinition of what constitutes "the political" is required if young people engagement in political participation is to be understood fully.
Abstract: This paper critically examines the dominant, and predominantly negative, discourses around young people's political participation, or supposed lack of it. Drawing upon contemporary debates about young people within geography, political science and sociology, it considers the ways in which a redefinition of what constitutes ‘the political’ is required if young people's engagement in political participation is to be understood fully. The paper reports on research conducted with young D/deaf people that did not intentionally set out to research their political participation, action or identi ties, but which uncovered a range of political aspects in their lives and experiences. It explores the ways in which volunteering can be defined as political action and, after de Certeau and Scott, how the use of British Sign Language can be a resistive act, a tactic or weapon of the weak. Threaded throughout the paper is a consideration of the ways in which there are complex geographies of activism at play.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors found that perceptions of candidate proactive behavior, empathy, and need for achievement were related to transformational leadership and attributed charisma, with trust in the leader an important mediating variable between leadership perceptions and voting behavior.
Abstract: This study of the 2000 U.S. presidential election replicates and extends Pillai and Williams‘ [Leadersh. Q. 9 (1998) 397] study of the 1996 presidential election. Data were collected at two periods from respondents across three regions of the United States to yield 342 matched sets of preelection variables and postelection measures. Transformational leadership and attributed charisma were strongly associated with reported voting behavior for candidates Bush and Gore beyond party affiliation. Important extensions to earlier findings are that perceptions of candidate proactive behavior, empathy, and need for achievement were shown to be related to transformational leadership and attributed charisma, with trust in the leader an important mediating variable between leadership perceptions and voting behavior. Implications of the findings for future research are discussed.

Posted Content
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate the extent to which these arguments influence voters' opinions and find that successful attempts to move towards a more privatized education system rest mainly on pure income effects, some other socioeconomic determinants, ideological convictions, and possibly the perceived quality of the public schools.
Abstract: Economic theory advances various arguments in favor of and against privatizing education. In this paper we investigate the extent to which these arguments influence voters' opinions. We analyze two popular referenda in which some 400,000 voters in two Swiss cantons expressed their opinions on the issue of education vouchers and direct subsidies to private schools. We find that successful attempts to move towards a more privatized education system rest mainly on pure income effects, some other socio-economic determinants, ideological convictions, and possibly the perceived quality of the public schools. Peer-group and tax-burden effects, which play a prominent role in the theoretical literature, do not appear to significantly influence voting behavior.

Book ChapterDOI
01 Feb 2003
TL;DR: In the early 1970s, U.S. social science was not only caught up in the social upheavals triggered by “the sixties,” but also in what was to become a remarkable renascence of comparative and historical scholarship engaging big questions about social change and politics.
Abstract: Social science achieves its potential and proves its worth as a human enterprise when it offers “substantive enlightenment … about the social structures in which we are enmeshed and which largely condition the course of our lives,” declared Lewis Coser (1975, p. 698) in his 1975 presidential address to the American Sociological Association. As Coser articulated this demanding standard, U.S. social science was not only caught up in the social upheavals triggered by “the sixties.” It was also in the early stages of what was to become a remarkable renascence of comparative and historical scholarship engaging big questions about social change and politics. To be sure, Coser's vision was in tension with reigning academic paradigms of the 1960s and 1970s. Economists were committed to abstract equilibrium models almost entirely detached from empirical trends, while most sociologists and political scientists practiced what C. Wright Mills (1959) decried as “abstracted empiricism” tempered with flights of artificially generalized “grand theory.” Enamored of advances in survey research and statistical analysis, most postwar U.S. sociologists and political scientists produced atemporal studies of contemporary social problems, voting behavior, or processes of individual status attainment, while a minority of macroscopically focused scholars attempted to fit all the nations of the world along a single evolutionary path toward the “modern social (or political) system” – a construct that looked suspiciously like an idealized version of the United States circa 1960.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The self-prophecy effect has been shown to induce an increase in voting behavior by means of such a "self-prophetcy" effect: undergraduates who were asked to predict whether they would vote in an upcoming election were substantially more likely to go to the polls than those who had not been asked for a prediction.
Abstract: Psychological research has found that being asked to predict one'sfuture actions can bring about subsequent behavior consistent with the prediction but different from what would have occurred had no prediction been made. In a 1987 study, Greenwald, Carnot, Beach, and Young induced an increase in voting behavior by means of such a "self-prophecy" effect: Undergraduates who were asked to predict whether they would vote in an upcoming election were substantially more likely to go to the polls than those who had not been asked for a prediction. This paper reports on a replication of the Greenwald study conducted among a larger group of respondents more representative of the American elec

Journal ArticleDOI
Anirudh Krishna1
TL;DR: The role of caste in Indian politics is undergoing considerable change as discussed by the authors, and there are indications that the influence of patronage and caste might have declined considerably in recent years: national-level survey data reveal some important facts that run counter to the conventional wisdom on voter behavior.
Abstract: The role of caste in indian politics is undergoing considerable change. Caste and patron-client links have been regarded traditionally as the building blocks of political organization in India (Brass 1994; Manor 1997; Migdal 1988; Kothari 1988; Weiner 1967), and vertical and horizontal mobilizations by patrons and caste leaders, respectively, have been important influences on political outcomes (Rudolph and Rudolph 1967). There are indications, however, that the influence of patronage and caste might have declined considerably in recent years:[National-level] survey data reveal some important facts that run counter to the conventional wisdom on voter behavior. … In 1996, 75 percent of the sample said they were not guided by anyone in their voting decision. … Of the 25 percent who sought advice, only 7 percent sought it from caste and community leaders … that is, less than 2 percent of the electorate got direct advice on how to vote from caste and community leaders. … The most important survey data show the change over time. In 1971, 51 percent of the respondents agreed that it was “important to vote the way your caste/community does” (30 percent disagreed), but in 1996 the percentages were reversed: 51 percent disagreed with that statement (29 percent agreed). … In 1998, “caste and community” was seen as an issue by only 5.5 percent of the respondents in one poll … and [it] ranked last of nine issues in another. All the evidence points to the fact that these respondents are correct: members of particular castes … can be found voting for every party. … It is less and less true that knowing the caste of a voter lets you reliably predict the party he or she will vote for.(Oldenburg 1999, 13–15, emphasis in original)

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article conducted large-scale randomized field experiments conducted in Connecticut and New Jersey during state and municipal elections of 1999 and found that partisan campaign mail does little to stimulate voter turnout and may even dampen it when the mail is negative in tone.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the most interesting change in patterns of political communication is in the way political culture is produced, not in how it is consumed, through the findings from systematic ethnographies of two organizations devoted to digitizing the social contract.
Abstract: Campaigns are complex exercises in the creation, transmission, and mutation of significant political symbols. However, there are important differences between political communication through new media and political communication through traditional media. I argue that the most interesting change in patterns of political communication is in the way political culture is produced, not in the way it is consumed. These changes are presented through the findings from systematic ethnographies of two organizations devoted to digitizing the social contract. DataBank.com is a private data mining company that used to offer its services to wealthier campaigns, but can now sell data to the smallest nascent grassroots movements and individuals. Astroturf-Lobby.org is a political action committee that helps lobbyists seek legislative relief to grievances by helping these groups find and mobilize their sympathetic publics. I analyze the range of new media tools for producing political culture, and with this ethnographic ...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the condition of minority empowerment and how the election of black and Latino mayors affects the political mobilization, political attitudes, and voting behavior of these two groups has been investigated.
Abstract: Over the past forty years, the demographic makeup of the largest American cities has shifted toward greater numbers of minority residents and proportionately fewer whites. In part this development reflects several decades of white flight from urban centers, but increasingly this trend also reflects the growing number of Latinos that reside in many American cities. Rising numbers of cities with minorities in the majority suggest important consequences for urban politics and in particular point to heightened possibilities for minority empowerment and governance. But this outcome is far from certain. Blacks and Latinos may form electoral alliances in joint support of minority candidates, yet recent mayoral elections in Miami, Houston, and Los Angeles, for example, suggest that these coalitions are not inevitable. It is safe to say that among the most pressing research questions facing students of urban politics in the present era are understanding the likelihood of Latino/black minority alliances and identifying the potential obstacles to these minority coalitions. Latino and black citizens increasingly share large urban centers, and yet the political relationship between these two groups has not been adequately explored. Traditional notions of the rainbow coalition would suggest that blacks and Latinos are natural political allies; however, competition over power and resources between these two groups can lead to fractious and uncooperative relationships. This article in particular studies the condition of minority empowerment and how the election of black and Latino mayors affects the political mobilization, political attitudes, and voting behavior of these two groups.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For instance, this paper pointed out that contemporary political science is a net importer of ideas and methods from other disciplines, and from none more than economics, and that some of the most exciting research in political science in the past 40 years has involved the incorporation of ideas from economics.
Abstract: Inviting political scientists to tell economists how they could do better work is an act of disciplinary generosity. The reality is that contemporary political science is a net importer of ideas and methods from other disciplines, and from none more than economics. Indeed, some of the most exciting research in political science in the past 40 years has involved the incorporation of ideas from economics. We have neither the space nor the mandate to summarize that research here, but refer interested readers to Gary J. Miller's (1997) extensive review. Our aim here is to offertwo modest case studies of specific instances of overlap between the interests and research efforts of economists and political scientists. Our first case study focuses on describing and explaining participation in the workforce, the polity, and many other social activities and organizations. Our second case study focuses on the impact of political processes and institutions on macroeconomic policies and performance. In both these instances the work of economists has been quite fruitful—but also, we think, hampered by a characteristic overreliance on standard economic models and methods. However, in both areas, recent developments may point the way toward a more constructive research style combining the theoretical and empirical rigor of economics with a broader and more eclectic approach familiar to political scientists.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify spatial patterns of county-level presidential election outcomes from 1988 to 2000, and test the retrospective (reward-punishment) and issue-priority models of voting behavior within the context of countylevel geographical clusters.

BookDOI
Philip Keefer1, Stuti Khemani1
TL;DR: In this article, the authors review the theory and evidence on the impact of incomplete information of voters, the lack of credibility of political promises, and social polarization on political incentives, and argue that the effects of these imperfections are large, but that their implications are insufficiently integrated into the design of policy reforms aimed at improving the provision of public goods, and reducing poverty.
Abstract: Countries vary systematically with respect to the incentives of politicians to provide broad public goods, and to reduce poverty. Even in developing countries that are democracies, politicians often have incentives to divert resources to political rents, and to private transfers that benefit a few citizens at the expense of many. These distortions can be traced to imperfections in political markets, that are greater in some countries than in others. The authors review the theory, and evidence on the impact of incomplete information of voters, the lack of credibility of political promises, and social polarization on political incentives. They argue that the effects of these imperfections are large, but that their implications are insufficiently integrated into the design of policy reforms aimed at improving the provision of public goods, and reducing poverty.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper investigated individual-level determinants of voters' political gender stereotypes and found that beliefs about men's emotional suitability for politics predict voter stereotypes about the ability of politicians to handle issues.
Abstract: This study uses original data to investigate the individual-level determinants of voters' political gender stereotypes. I find that beliefs about men's emotional suitability for politics predict voter stereotypes about the ability of politicians to handle issues, whereas political knowledge predicts voter stereotypes about politicians' issue positions. Therefore, whereas some political gender stereotypes can primarily be explained by beliefs about the traits of men and women in general, other stereotypes are more related to knowledge about politics. This study suggests that whereas some political gender stereotypes may change if differences in the behavior of men and women politicians narrow, other stereotypes may be more enduring and less susceptible to change.

Book ChapterDOI
01 Aug 2003
TL;DR: In the history of social science research on group-based political alignments, religious cleavages have often been shown to be a more powerful predictor of individual voting behavior than class location as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In the history of social science research on group-based political alignments, religious cleavages have often been shown to be a more powerful predictor of individual voting behavior than class location (e.g., Rose and Urwin 1969; Converse 1974; Lijphart 1979; Dogan 1995; Brooks and Manza 1997). Yet it has received significantly less attention than studies analyzing class politics, and even when acknowledging the existence of religious-based political divides, scholars have often assumed that some other, nonreligious antecedent factor lays behind it. As Demerath and Williams (1990: 434) put it, “While students of voting do cite religious affiliation as a significant variable, they often tend to interpret its effects less in terms of theology and ecclesiastical influence than in terms of ethnic, class, and regional factors lurking beneath the symbolic surface.” Since the late 1970s, however, dramatic religious mobilizations around the world – including a fundamentalist Islamic revolution in Iran, the visibly active role of the Catholic Church in the Solidarity movement in Poland in 1980–1, growing publicity about “liberation theology” movements in Latin America, and, in the United States the rise of politically active conservative Christian organizations such as the Moral Majority – have made it more difficult for scholars to ignore the ways in which religion shapes political action and behavior. And indeed, over the past fifteen years there has been considerable growth in research on (and scholarly controversies about) the association between religious group memberships, doctrinal beliefs and practices, and voting behavior.

Journal ArticleDOI
James M. Glaser1
TL;DR: This article found that non-blacks are more likely to support proportionality in less black than heavily black environments, and that the same relationship is much weaker when the variations in population are non-racial.
Abstract: Previous studies of group conflict theory look at the relationship between racial balance in a particular area (precinct, county, etc.) and racial attitudes or political behaviour within that area. While of value, there are significant methodological disadvantages to this approach. Here, I address those problems using public opinion experiments in which I ask respondents whether they would allocate political goods proportionally given different (randomly assigned) hypothetical racial environments. The experiment yields confirmatory results, with non-blacks more likely to support proportionality in less black than heavily black environments. In a second experiment, I find that the same relationship is much weaker when the variations in population are non-racial. Finally, I show that the relationship also holds for blacks and argue that this is theoretically consistent.

Reference EntryDOI
15 Apr 2003
TL;DR: In this article, a comprehensive, generative, theoretically coherent framework for studying personality in politics that is consonant with established principles in the adjacent sciences and integrative with respect to accommodating a diversity of politically relevant personal characteristics is presented.
Abstract: This chapter outlines the history of personality inquiry in political psychology, examines the current state of personality in politics, and charts a course for the study of personality in politics in the post-cognitive revolution era, informed by contextually adjacent scientific fields such as behavioral neuroscience and evolutionary ecology. The chapter offers a comprehensive, generative, theoretically coherent framework for studying personality in politics that is consonant with established principles in the adjacent sciences and integrative with respect to accommodating a diversity of politically relevant personal characteristics. It attempts to bridge conceptual and methodological gaps between current formulations in the source disciplines of personology and personality assessment and the target discipline of contemporary political personality—specifically the psychological examination of political leaders—and proposes a set of basic standards for personality-in-politics modeling. The personality-in-politics model formulated in this chapter accounts for structural and functional personality attributes at behavioral, phenomenological, intrapsychic, and biophysical levels of analysis; permits supplementary developmental causal analysis; provides an explicit framework for personality-based risk analysis in politics; provides an assessment methodology; explicitly links personality with political performance outcomes; acknowledges the impact of situational variables and the cultural context on political performance; and allows for personological, situational, and contextual filters that modulate the impact of personality on political performance. Keywords: personality assessment; political leadership; political personality; political psychology

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A special issue on neuroscientific contributions to political psychology may strike some as an odd choice as mentioned in this paper, since neuroscientists are reductionistic, dismissive of behavioral scientists and ecological contexts, and prefer invertebrates to primates as subjects of investigation.
Abstract: A special issue on neuroscientific contributions to political psychology may strike some as an odd choice. Neuroscientists, or so the stereotype goes, are concerned about the basic building blocks of life and behavior, whereas political psychologists are more likely to be concerned about voter sophistication, international conflict, and Armageddon. Neuroscientists are reductionistic, dismissive of behavioral scientists and ecological contexts, and prefer invertebrates to primates as subjects of investigation. Political psychologists, on the other hand, study everyday events in complex human societies to understand political choices, actions, and consequences in the real world. Despite these stereotypes, neuroscientists and behavioral scientists are more similar than dissimilar on core questions, epistemology, and values. Neuroscientists are increasingly appreciative of the powerful role that social, political, and cultural factors can play in the development, selection, or maintenance of basic neurobehavioral mechanisms, whereas social scientists are discovering that neuroscientific principles and techniques can contribute to more realistic models of the diversity of mechanisms underlying social behaviors, empirical tests of conflicting theoretical accounts of social behavior, and more comprehensive understanding of social and political behavior (Cacioppo, in press). If neuroscientists and political psychologists are not strange bedfellows, neither are they comrades in arms. The purpose of this special issue is to move ever so slightly toward the latter endpoint. Research in behavioral, cognitive, and social neuroscience has advanced our understanding of what and how people perceive, feel, and remember, and it is illuminating what and how people think, decide, and act. Together, this work and the theory and methods behind it have provocative if not yet important implications for theory and research on political behavior. The contributors to this special issue review relevant developments in the neurosciences, discuss representative research that features multilevel integrative analyses, and examine some of the challenges, perils, and opportunities

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article examined the voting behavior of Mexican Americans living in south Texas counties on the US border and found that Spanish-speaking Latinos will be more likely to vote than English-speaking Latino, while the establishment of ties to an ethnic group in a majorityminority context over time mitigates the negative relationship between the use of Spanish as a primary language and voting.
Abstract: Objective Students of political behavior have often found that the primary use of languages other than English impedes many forms of political participation in the United States We develop expectations about how language choice operates with social context to influence an individual's decision to vote Although choosing to speak a language other than English—in this case, Spanish—may affect the amount of political information individuals have at their disposal, this choice also represents their access to social and community resources that enable, rather than impede, political participation Methods We examine the voting behavior of Latinos, almost entirely Mexican Americans, living in south Texas counties on the US border and reconsider the consequences of language choice for political behavior Results Controlling for past residential tenure, we find that Spanish-speaking Latinos will be more likely to vote than English-speaking Latinos Conclusions The establishment of ties to an ethnic group in a majority-minority context over time mitigates the negative relationship between the use of Spanish as a primary language and voting