Three independent studies drawing on the cases from different spaces and times comprise this research project, but they share a common theme: how do expansive reforms that open up paths to political participation take place? The first paper takes up the case of the motor voter reform, which allows people to register to vote at driver's license offices. The reform was widely legislated by U.S. states before the passage of the National Voter Registration Act in 1993. The paper investigates the factors that helped promote the reform at the state level by breaking down the reforms along two dimensions: the voter registration location and the implementation method. Motor voter legislation could either stand alone or be accompanied by agency-based registration (ABR), which includes registration at social service public agencies that primarily serve the poor. A reform could be implemented in an active or passive way. While ABR and active implementation had the potential to mobilize previously alienated socioeconomic groups, motor voter reform itself and passive implementation were expected to have a partisan-neutral and limited impact, respectively. Using data collected from the archived materials of the leading advocacy organization of the reform, Human SERVE, I test the following three general hypotheses statistically: 1) the Democratic Party is interested in mobilizing the poor, 2) electoral competition enhances mobilization efforts by parties, and 3) liberal political culture promotes inclusive electoral institutions. All three hypotheses find some support in the empirical analysis. The second paper focuses on a candidate selection method reform in contemporary Japan. Throughout the first decade of the twenty first century, the (then) opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) used kôbo, an open-recruitment candidate selection method, which was purported to open up the party nomination to non-traditional outsider aspirants. The DPJ's action presented a puzzle: searching for low-electability amateur candidates instead of traditional quality candidates seemed paradoxical for a party preparing to take over power. The paper reveals that using kôbo was a transitional strategy for a young party building itself under the mixed-member majoritarian system. I argue that recruiting "fresh faces" was not what really motivated the use of kôbo, by showing how kôbo increasingly produced insider candidates over time. The third paper investigates the development of direct primary in nineteenth century Pennsylvania. The historical origins of the U.S. primaries have mostly been discussed in terms of statewide legislations around the Progressive Era, which made the primaries mandatory for the two major parties. This paper focuses instead on the voluntary adoption phase that took place under the party by-laws, paying special attention to the case of Pennsylvania after 1842. I argue that the party elites of county organizations initiated the introduction of the primaries in order to prevent defection and to preserve party unity. As the vote share of a party increased, the party nomination became more valuable, and more people competed for nomination. More disgruntled nomination losers would run as independents, hurting the electoral prospects of a given party in the general election. For party leaders, whose overwhelming concern was the maintenance of party unity, the direct primary system offered a solution by presenting the primary winner as a focal candidate to the party voters. The primaries made it harder for losers to defect later, with the transparent features of their procedures. Thus, the stronger the party, the more likely it was to adopt the direct primary. The paper tests this hypothesis empirically with an original data set built from hundreds of archived local newspapers. To my knowledge, this is the first study on nineteenth century county-level party activities to use comprehensive data covering most counties from a single state. The findings have broader implications as to how party competition affects the choice of candidate selection methods, and the role which competition among elites plays in the democratization of the intraparty decision-making mechanism.

My dissertation explains the extent to which electoral institutions and declining political party competition precipitated a steep decline in U.S. turnout after 1896 from which the nation never recovered. Turnout dropped from 83 to 66 percent in less than ten years. This is a persistent puzzle in political science because data limitations have stymied empirical assessment of existing theories. Using original datasets on nineteenth century voter registration laws and records on political gambling on presidential elections from 1880 to 1916, I test the hypothesis that the shift in electoral behavior was a function of registration reforms and declining competition. I find that registration laws and political competition modestly explain the decline. Registration reforms explain one percent of the seventeen point turnout drop, and the combined effect of registration and declining competition is approximately two to three percentage points of the drop. I also found that the effect of registration are conditional on immigration, the effect is stronger in states with higher immigrant populations. For the most part, political party competition had a positive effect on turnout in the expected direction. In states remaining competitive after 1896, the long-term average effect of competition on turnout was an increase of about 14 percentage points. To validate this argument, I use election-betting data to create a measure of the public's perception of electoral competition in the states. My findings indicate that highly informed individuals accurately predicted election outcomes, which suggests the public was aware of the electoral competitiveness of presidential elections in the states. This means that perceptions about the electoral competitiveness of races likely influenced voters' decisions to participate. My dissertation advances our empirical and theoretical understanding of the interaction between institutions and political behavior and helps to inform the current debate on the potential implications that contemporary legal reforms in election laws might have on voter participation in America.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T14:54:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Mamerto Granja Garcia.pdf: 3048919 bytes, checksum: b442a16b24cfc59b90c080c63cc574cc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-03-24 / Understand the electoral process and to identify the variables explicitly or implicitly involved remains a field full of mysteries as dark as the human mind. Psychosocial factors awakened in the election period refer the researcher to an environment full of symbols , the most unusual emotions and diverse interests that include a search undertaken by the voter , apparently rational , in order to find convergence between their personal aspirations and potential characteristics representative . This paper aims to outline considerations on the subject based on an analysis of voter behavior from three factors that stand out during the election process: indecision, the continuity and the candidate. Indecision will be analyzed from a survey of undecided voters indicated in several polls. It is demonstrated that the simple fact of being located in the stratum of the undecided voter presents trends vote for a particular candidate. On the topic continuity and candidate assesses the issue of parliamentarians that keeps on elective position for long periods, through successive re-elections, and in addition, an analysis of the candidate's profile and its effect on the voter's decision. To all these questions, appropriate quantitative models are used, which seek to create a bridge between research in the social sciences and the analysis of observations by means of statistical / Compreender o processo eleitoral e identificar as variáveis explicitamente ou implicitamente envolvidas continua sendo um campo repleto de mistérios tão obscuros quanto a mente humana. Os fatores psicossociais despertados no período eleitoral remetem o pesquisador a um ambiente repleto de simbologias, as mais inusitadas emoções e interesses diversos que compreendem uma busca empreendida pelo eleitor, aparentemente racional, no sentido de encontrar convergência entre seus anseios pessoais e as características do potencial representante. Este trabalho tem como objetivo delinear considerações sobre o tema com base em uma análise do comportamento do eleitor a partir de três fatores que se destacam durante o processo eleitoral: a indecisão, a continuidade e o candidato. A indecisão será analisada a partir do levantamento dos eleitores indecisos apontados em diversas pesquisas eleitorais. Demonstra-se que pelo simples fato de se situar no estrato dos indecisos, o eleitor apresenta tendências de voto para determinado candidato. No tópico continuidade e candidato, avalia-se a questão dos parlamentares que se mantem no cargo eletivo por longos períodos, através de sucessivas reeleições e como complemento, é feita uma análise do perfil do candidato e seus efeitos na decisão do eleitor. Para todas essas questões, são utilizados modelos quantitativos apropriados, os quais buscam criar uma ponte entre a pesquisa nas Ciências Sociais e a análise das observações por meio de ferramentas estatísticas

The millennial generation has become the largest generation in the United States. Yet as more members of this generation reach voting age, their propensity to vote remains stagnant. For instance, in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, less than 50% of eligible millennials voted, in comparison to the 69% of baby boomers and 63% of Generation X. Voting is a civic duty essential to a successful democracy; therefore, it is imperative to find solutions to increase millennial political engagement. As millennials represent the largest proportion of users of social media, the purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationships between voter registration and voting rates and social media usage. To provide clarification on the issue of millennial voting and voter registration, a conceptual framework was used to explore whether a connection exists between millennial political participation and social media because existing theory was insufficient to address this issue. Using secondary data from the 2016 Millennial Impact Report, 1,050 millennial survey responses were gathered on millennial social media usage, intent to vote, and voter registration. A 2 proportions z-test was used to conclude that there was no difference in voter registration and voting rates between millennials who posted 1 to 3 times per week and those who posted 4 to 7 times per week on social media. This study may promote social change by informing those who seek solutions to increase millennial voting and voter registration rates for the continuation of the American democratic system.

<p>Participation in the European Parliament Election has steadily declined since the start in 1979. In 2004 less than half (47.8%) of the voting-age population of the European Union used their right to vote. This has actualized questions asking if the European Parliament is a good representation of the European citizens. The paradigm when it comes to explaining the electoral turnout in the European Parliament Election is the second-order theory. Though the theory explains the low voter participation, it does not explain why the European Parliament Election has become a second-order election. Thus, in this thesis will search for the underlying variable explaining why the European Parliament Election is a second-order election. Through our research we find that distances are important in the European Union, and they create centres and peripheries within the European Union. By looking at Rokkan and Urwin‟s horizontal and vertical types of peripheries, where the vertical type consists of Rokkan and Urwin‟s three domain of social life, our research concludes that centre-periphery structures within the European Union are the underlying variable, explaining why the European Parliament Election is a second-order election.</p>

Introduction: Domestic research studies focused on the interrelationships between political ideology characteristics inherent in policy decisions and the contributions these political determinants exert over health indicators and outcomes are limited. Given the paucity of research that focuses on political and policy support of health at the county-level, this study sets out to utilize the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute’s (UWPHI) annual County Health Rankings data and examine them within the context of county-based majority political partisanship and economic measures. Methods: This exploratory ecological study examined differences between independent variables: partisan voting behavior (trichotomized as conservative, moderate, and liberal) and median per capita household income in U.S. dollars (by quartile) on dependent variables related to mortality (years of productive life lost) and morbidity (number of poor mental and physical health days) at the county-level to compare differences in political and ideological underpinnings that may act as influencers on health outcomes. Multiple data sources were combined and matched to all 3,140 counties located in the U.S. Two-way between-subjects ANOVA statistical tests were conducted to determine if there is an effect of partisan voter index category on the three aforementioned dependent variables related to health outcomes, and median per capita income by quartile. Results: There was a statistically significant main interaction between median per capita household income by quartile and partisan voter index category on years of productive life lost, F(6,2789) = 19.3, p < .000, partial η2 = .040. While there were also statistically significant interactions between the independent and dependent variables of poor mental and physical health days, results of those analyses should be interpreted with caution. Pertaining to years of productive life lost, post hoc analyses of significant interactions revealed significant differences at the lower income quartile, but not in the expected direction. The conservative category had statistically significant lower years of productive life lost in comparison to the liberal category (M = -8.21, SE = 1.47, p = .000). Also, there were significant differences detected in the upper quartile suggesting that the liberal category has lower years of productive life lost in comparison to the conservative category (M = 7.06, SE = 1.06, p = .000). Conclusion: Results should be interpreted with caution and suggest more research and methodological refinements are needed, particularly related to categorizing county-level political dynamics.

In 2010, our definition of democracy in America was drastically changed by the Supreme Court case Citizens United v. FEC. The Court ruled that under the First Amendment, corporations have the right to free speech. The decision removed the final ban on corporations, which prohibited corporate money used for direct advocacy. The consequences of this have been tremendous. The decision has allowed for the creation and rise of Super PACs and political active nonprofits. As a result, Super PACs and nonprofits now act as “shadow campaigns”. Outside groups have the ability to engage in voter suppression tactics without politically hurting the candidate. Unlike political candidates, there are no direct ramifications for an outside organization to get caught engaging in voter suppression. They are not held accountable by anyone. The ability to take political action that is independent from the government or campaigns allows for a new form of corruption. Corruption is no longer a coordinated act between corporate money and a candidate, but rather political actions that take place outside the public sphere. Political actions that take place in the private sphere are outside the realm of political accountability. The people stand powerless against private outside organizations.

Elections are a core element in democracy, and a number of analysts have identified electoral participation of eligible voters as an important indicator of how well democracy is functioning at a particular time in a particular place (see, for example, Burnham, Elections as Democratic Institutions, 1987). In such studies, a major lament about U.S. democracy has been the decline in citizens’ participation in elections. In 2010, California voters passed Proposition 14. Proposition 14 enforces an open primary in which the top two candidates who garner the highest vote totals proceed to the general election, regardless of party. Supporters of Proposition 14 believe that a Top-Two primary will create more moderate candidates, which will appeal to a larger cross section of the electorate and increase competition and voter turnout. Opponents of Proposition 14 claimed the opposite, and believe that the constitutional amendment will decrease voter turnout due to lack of plurality, as write-ins will be eliminated and only two candidates will contend in the general election.

In 2004, the clothing retailer Urban Outfitters sold a t-shirt with the slogan, “Voting is for Old People”. Did Urban Outfitters step over the line, or were they a reflection of the sate of our democracy and the demographics of current voters? Many organizations have developed to combat the problem of low youth voter turnout and disengagement. One of the most well-known organizations is Rock the Vote. In its 18 year existence, has youth turnout increased? Have their efforts been futile or on the other side, have they been successful in paving the way for the youth to demand attention from the government and be heard? The purpose of this research is to measure the effects of the efforts targeted toward youth voters over the past 18 years, in terms of voter turnout using American National Election Studies Data. The results show that voting is not just for old people.

Scholars of economics, sociology, political science, and social psychology have attempted to define and quantify quality of life in order to make meaningful observations of society and to formulate optimal policy prescriptions. Unfortunately few if any of these attempts have systematically measured or used quality of life in a quantitative evaluation of data. In what follows I develop an empirically valid metric for measuring quality of life, establish the role of quality of life in determining societal and political outcomes, and explore what predicts higher quality of life to provide insight to about how quality of life can be improved.