This dissertation investigates the important role attitudes play in determining the
participation levels of a large number of Americans. Over the past 30 years the
prominent theories in the political participation literature have stressed the importance of
socioeconomic status in explaining voter turnout. More recently, some have suggested
that voting is a habit that most Americans acquire over their lifetimes. I contend that this
previous work is incomplete in that it overlooks a large segment of the public that I
describe as sporadic voters. Using National Election Study panel data from the early
1970s and 1990s, I find that neither socioeconomic status nor habit explains the voting
behavior of sporadic voters. Sporadic voters decide to participate in elections based on
their political attitudes at the time of any given election. If they have stronger partisan
attachments, greater campaign interest or more external efficacy sporadic voters will be
more likely to show up at the polls regardless of changes in education, age or income.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-1846 |
| Date | 02 June 2009 |
| Creators | Owens, Christopher T. |
| Contributors | Leighley, Jan E., Peterson, David A.M. |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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