Joshua J. Dyck

Residential Concentration, Political Socialization, and Voter Turnout

Although many have hypothesized that neighborhoods and social context are important influences on the decision to vote, the data to study these phenomenon have often been inadequate. We examine a unique source of data, registered voter lists, from a rich variety of locations that allow us to tap into this social participation dynamic using a multilevel research design. We find that neighborhood context does have a socializing influence on voters, sometimes mobilizing them while at other times demobilizing them. Notably, this effect is separate from the effect of individual-level sociodemographic influences on participation and is manifest over and above these long- standing explanations.

Initiated Distrust: Direct Democracy and Trust in Government

An abundance of recent research has suggested that direct democracy institutions, such as the initiative and referendum, craft an environment ripe for encouraging better democratic citizenship. High and frequent exposure to ballot measures has been shown to increase the awareness, efficacy, political participation, and even the general level of happiness of citizens. In contrast to these studies, I develop and test a theory that the use of ballot initiatives undermines the ability of government to prove themselves trustworthy. Using data from two surveys, I demonstrate that ballot initiatives in the American states do indeed create an environment that encourages citizens to distrust their government. The findings have implications in assessing the positive externalities to direct legislation as well as in understanding policy choice made in these elections.

The Conspiracy of Silence: Context and Voting on Gay Marriage Ballot Measures

Gay marriage bans have received widespread support in the past decade in states across America. The authors evaluate the extent to which context mitigates or exacerbates support for gay rights. Their question is grounded in the debate over whether exposure to out-groups creates acceptance through contact or whether exposure induces hostility through threat. Using data from twelve marriage ban elections, the authors find conditional support for the threat hypothesis. While the presence of a gay population is unimportant to the majority of the population, evangelical Christians who live proximate to larger gay populations are more likely to support bans on gay marriage.

A Blue Tide in the Golden State: Ballot Propositions, Population Change, and Party Identification in California

Party identification is notoriously “sticky,” yet over the last three decades the California electorate has changed tremendously. A once red state has become one of the most reliable Democratic strongholds in the nation. What explains this change? One common explanation rests with population shifts and macropartisan trends. Another claims the combination of a rapidly expanding Latino electorate and a series of high-profile anti-immigrant ballot initiatives supported by the state’s Republicans drove partisan change in California. Building off of previous research, we seek to reconcile the differential impacts of these factors on the state’s Latinos and non-Hispanic Whites. Our analyses partially confirm and clarify previous findings regarding Latino partisan change, while directly challenging findings regarding partisan change among non-Hispanic Whites.

The effect of local political context on how Americans vote

Neighborhood context could condition voting decisions, but systematic investigation of whether (how) the traits of a given locale shape individual voting decisions is sparse. We explore the possibility that local partisan balance affects turnout and the use of convenience voting in particular. Using comprehensive registered-voter lists from four swing states in the 2002 and 2006 elections, we find an intriguing asymmetry: Republican registrants are usually sensitive to partisan context, whereas Democrats are not. Republican election-day turnout rates generally decrease with the proportion of partisan registrants that are Democratic in the area. This demobilization is only sporadically counterbalanced by greater use of convenience voting. In contrast, Democrats exhibit less systematic patterns. In many cases, there are seemingly perverse effects, wherein Democratic turnout rates fall with growing Democratic registration advantages. The asymmetry may be driven by differences in the competitiveness of elections in areas with notable imbalances in partisan registration.

Election-Year Stimuli and the Timing of Voter Registration

Despite less stringent requirements and more convenient access, 24 percent of the age-eligible United States population remained unregistered in 2000. While this proportion dropped in 2004, a large share of registrants still failed to cast ballots in the Bush—Kerry contest. With the outcome of national elections hinging on a percentage point or two in recent years, attention has once again been focused on registration and mobilization activity. But while we know a great deal about turnout, there is little systematic knowledge about how election-related stimuli may influence voter registration. We examine the registration dates and official turnout records for individuals from counties in six states for the 2000 election. We find that a surprising number of voters register in the year of the election, and that key dates and campaign events frequently coincide with surges in registration. In addition, we demonstrate that later registrants are relatively more likely to vote.

Political Distrust and Conservative Voting in Ballot Measure Elections

Over the past thirty years, the cumulative effects of direct democracy have served to decrease both levels of taxation and spending in the American states. Yet conservative budgetary policy measures passed during this time period were likely to occur in liberal states. Using data on over thirty separate ballot issues, the author offers a solution to this puzzle, demonstrating that distrusting government serves as a consistently robust predictor of conservative policy choice. The implication of this finding is that citizens often choose conservative policy outcomes because they believe that government is functionally incapable of giving them what they want.

Racial Threat, Direct Legislation, and Social Trust: Taking Tyranny Seriously in Studies of the Ballot Initiative

Current research has argued that direct legislation makes democracies better by helping to encourage better democratic citizenship. In this study, the author tests whether these effects are conditional on the diversity of the electorate. Theoretically, he argues that policy making by majority rule will create conflict because of the perceived threat of large numerical minorities by majority groups. The author hypothesizes that in areas of greater diversity, democratic citizenship socialization effects can be mitigated, especially as it relates to trusting strangers. Using pooled data from the American National Election Study, the author demonstrates the diversity conditional effects of ballot initiative context on generalized trust.

The Limits of Citizen Support for Direct Democracy

THE CALIFORNIA Journal of Politics & Policy Volume 4, Issue 1 The Limits of Citizen Support for Direct Democracy Joshua J. Dyck University at Buffalo, SUNY Mark Baldassare Public Policy Institute of California Abstract Direct democracy is extraordinarily popular and has become a pervasive policymak- ing tool at the state and local level. Repeated surveys demonstrate that Americans strongly approve of allowing people to vote on citizen-proposed laws, a method currently allowed in about half the states and in many municipalities. This paper ex- amines the extent of this support. Using dimension reduction techniques, we pres- ent evidence that demonstrates that with regards to approval of direct democracy, most voters find themselves in the middle. On principal, they approve of voting on ballot measures, but they express concern about campaigns and would support re- forms. Opinions about direct democracy are unidimensional and close examination of questions demonstrates that Californians will express general support for direct democracy, but are amenable to changes to the process that would fundamentally alter its usage. Keywords: direct democracy, initiative, referendum Copyright