Carol Galais

Beyond rationalization: Voting out of duty or expressing duty after voting?

It is a standard practice to include a Duty term in explanatory models of turnout. Yet the relationship between duty and voting is not that clear. Does duty really trigger voting or is it the reverse? To address this question, we present cross-lagged panel estimations of the impact of duty on turnout and of turnout on duty with two different datasets: a two-wave panel Canadian survey conducted in 2008 and 2009 and a four-wave Spanish panel conducted between 2010 and 2012. We find evidence that sense of civic duty is a true motivation that affects people’s propensity to vote, even though duty may be reinforced by the act of voting.

Don't Vote for Them: The Effects of the Spanish Indignant Movement on Attitudes about Voting

Abstract This article investigates the recent so-called Spanish Revolution of 2011 with a view to understanding what it reveals about the current relationship between protest and electoral modes of participation. Theories of “disaffeccted radicalism” that grew up following the 1960s period of civil unrest strongly advocated the view that protest activity boosted electoral abstention. More recent work on protest, however, has pointed to its “normalization” and linkage to more conventional modes of participation. The Spanish case of 15M constitutes a useful new test of the two theories given that it mixed an explicit rejection of the choices voters faced with a criticism of political apathy. I examine the validity of each argument using a four-wave online panel survey and fixed-effects model to unravel how engagement in the 15M protest activity affected Spaniards attitudes towards voting. The results provide fresh support for the normalization argument about a convergence of electoral and non-electoral types of activity. What is more, protest here seems to have a socialization effect that leads people to look at elections in a more positive manner.

Do people feel more of a duty to vote in some elections

Abstract Prior research on civic duty has focused on national elections, believed to be the most salient. Evidence on turnout gaps between election levels suggests that it is relevant to inquire whether people feel that they have the same duty to vote in national, subnational, and supranational elections. The article investigates this phenomenon, comparing citizens’ attitudes towards national, European, and regional elections in ten regions from four countries. About one-quarter of European citizens demonstrate a lesser degree of duty towards European rather than in national elections. Differences in duty levels for national and regional elections are infrequent and concentrated in regions with nationalist movements. Both rational and identity considerations explain why some individuals feel less obliged to vote in a particular election than in another, but the latter matter more.

Cherry-picking participation: Explaining the fate of proposals from participatory processes

What happens to the proposals generated by participatory processes? One of the key aspects of research on public participation that has been the subject of rare systematic analysis and comparison is the fate of the output from participatory processes: their proposals. Which specific factors explain whether proposals are accepted, rejected or transformed by public authorities? Thisxa0paper contributes to this gap in our understanding in two steps. First, we identifyxa0contextual, process and proposal related factors that are likely to affect the prospect ofxa0proposals being implemented, generating a set of testable hypotheses. Second, we test the explanatory power of these hypothesesxa0through multilevel analysis on a diverse set of 571 policy proposals. Our findings offerxa0evidence that while there is no effect for contextual factors, both process and proposal related variables have significant explanatory power. The designxa0of participatory processes affects the degree of implementation, with participatory budgeting and higher quality processes being particularly effective. But most significantxa0for explaining implementation are proposal level economic and political factors: a proposalsxa0cost, the extent to which it challenges existing policy and the degree of support it hasxa0within the municipality all strongly affect the chance of implementation.

HALF A LOAF IS (NOT) BETTER THAN NONE: HOW AUSTERITY-RELATED GRIEVANCES AND EMOTIONS TRIGGERED PROTESTS IN SPAIN*

Demonstrations have become more visible across Europe since the Great Recession. To clarify the connection between crisis and protest, we open the black box of crisis-related grievances, suggesting a typology for this subjective phenomenon and addressing the mediating role of emotions on protest. Using panel data, we explore the dimensionality of thirty different items that Spanish citizens have claimed to endure as a consequence of the crisis, and then we test their potential of these grievances as triggers of protest. Results show that both financial deprivation and grievances related to worker-citizens status and rights encourage protest activity. Crisis-related grievances trigger negative emotions, and curiously enough, both anger and anxiety boost protest. Our findings hold, regardless of political ideology, previous participation, or perceptions of self-efficacy.

When David and Goliath campaign online: The effects of digital media use during electoral campaigns on vote for small parties

ABSTRACT Challenger parties might have an advantage online compared to mainstream parties, since digital technologies increase their visibility at a low cost and connect them with niche audiences. Previous research has examined this phenomenon focusing on parties’ use of the Internet, yet we need to focus on voters’ behavior to quantify the effect. To this end, we use data covering 21 national and regional elections from four countries. Our results confirm that digital media use during the campaign boosts uncertainty about one’s own vote choice and, ultimately, increases the chances to change one’s voting intention from mainstream to small parties.

Visibility and Sanctions: The Social Norm of Voting in the Lab

Theories of voter turnout pay increasing attention to ethical and social motives of voting, yet the empirical foundations of such perspectives are still scarce. In this chapter, we present the results of a laboratory experiment, conducted in two different countries, in which we manipulate the social conditions under which the elections take place. We find that both visibility and the possibility of administering and receiving sanctions boost voter participation by seven or eight percentage points. We also show that voters are willing to punish non-voters at a cost to themselves one third of the time and that receiving a sanction for non-voting increases the likelihood of voting in the next round by about eight percentage points. Overall, the results are consistent with a social norm model of voting.

A call of duty in hard times: Duty to vote and the Spanish Economic Crisis

Although scarce, the literature addressing the effects of the economy on voter turnout and political attitudes has yielded mixed results. By using individual, longitudinal data from Spain—a country devastated by the Great Recession—our study illuminates how the latest economic crisis has impacted citizens’ perceptions of voting. We analyze how economic conditions and perceptions of the economy have transformed the belief that voting is a civic duty, which is one of the strongest attitudinal predictors of turnout. Our results suggest that hard times slightly weaken citizens’ sense of civic duty, particularly among the youngest. However, the adverse effects of the economic crisis are compensated by the positive effects of the electoral context, and as a consequence there is no aggregate decline in civic duty during the period examined (2010–2012).

Political socialization and motivation

This chapter addresses the nature and origin of Spanish MPs’ political motivations to enter politics in general and their party in particular, paying special attention to political socialization agencies and processes. Spanish representatives mostly refer to their will to serve the public as the reason to get involved in politics, which fits the “voter server” profile. Early activism in students’ organizations is a relevant source for this public vocation, but family is confirmed as a crucial socialization agency, especially for left-wing families. Family’s effect can be direct (exerted by MPs’ relatives or ancestors involved in politics) or indirect (conveyed by the discussion of political topics at home while MPs were growing up).

The effect of social pressure from family and friends on turnout

Recent research about the decision to vote or abstain finds a causal effect of social networks and social pressure. Yet this literature does not examine how this social pressure is exerted and by whom. This study aims at correcting these shortcomings. Using a two-wave panel survey conducted in Canada, we distinguish between the pressure exerted by friends and the partner and between descriptive and injunctive norms. We find that most people are not subjected to strong injunctive pressure, social pressure is most prominent in the household (between partners), it is mostly descriptive, and it has a powerful effect.