1. PARTICIPATION AND VOTING
Chapter 7
PARTICIPATION AND VOTING

2. Learning Outcomes
7.1 Define political participation and distinguish among types of participation
7.2 Identify examples of unconventional participation in American history and evaluate their effectiveness
7.3 Distinguish between supportive acts and influencing acts of political participation
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3. Learning Outcomes
7.4 Trace the expansion of suffrage in the United States and assess the impact of expanded suffrage on voting turnout 7.5 Identify the factors that affect political participation, especially voting 7.6 Evaluate the relationship between the values of freedom, equality, and order and political participation in American democracy
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4. Learning Outcomes
7.7 Identify the purposes elections serve and explain the relationship between elections and majoritarian and pluralist models of democracy
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5. Democracy and Political Participation
Conventional participation - routine
Unconventional participation - uncommon
Terrorism
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6. Unconventional Participation
Support for Unconventional Participation
Two reasons we know less about unconventional participation
Easier to collect data on conventional practices
Political scientists biased towards conventional politics
March for Freedom, Forty-Five Years Later
On Sunday, March 7, 2010, thousands marched across the Edmund
Pettus Bridge outside Selma, Alabama, to commemorate the ‘‘Bloody
Sunday’’ forty-five years earlier when people were beaten during a
voting rights protest.
AP Photo/Dave Martin
March for Freedom, Forty-Five Years Later
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7. Figure 7.1 What Americans Think Is Conventional Political Behavior
A survey presented Americans with three forms of political participation outside the electoral process and asked whether they “have done,” “might do,” or “would never do” any of them. The respondents approved overwhelmingly of signing petitions, which was widely done and rarely ruled out. Even attending demonstrations (a right guaranteed in the Constitution) would “never” be done by 30 percent of the respondents. Boycotting products was less objectionable and more widely practiced. According to this test, attending demonstrations and boycotting products are only marginally conventional forms of political participation in the United States.
Source: World Values Survey. The World Values Survey Association, based in Stockholm, conducts representative surveys in nations across the world. See
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8. Unconventional Participation
The Effectiveness of Unconventional Participation
Direct Action
Appeals to People Who:
Distrust Political System, and
Have Strong Sense of Political Efficacy
Provoked Violent Confrontation During Civil Rights Movement
Notable Successes by Civil Rights Workers
Pressured Congress to Pass Series of Civil Rights Laws
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9. Antiwar Protest, 2012 Antiwar Protest, 2012
In May 2012, representatives of 28 member nations of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) met in Chicago. In turn, they
were met by thousands of protesters opposed to war in general and to
NATO in particular.
Alex Garcia/Chicago Tribune/Landov
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10. Conventional Participation
Supportive Behavior
Expresses allegiance to country and government
Influencing Behavior
Seeks to modify or reverse government policy to serve political interests
Particular benefits, primarily self-interest
Broad policy objectives
Low-initiative and high-initiative activities
Using the Internet to access information
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11. Conventional Participation
Conventional Participation in America
Voting– most common form of political behavior in industrial democracies
Voter Turnout
U.S. ranks lower than 16 other countries
Political apathy
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12. Participating Through Voting
Expansion of Suffrage
Constitution left enfranchisement to the states
The enfranchisement of blacks
Fifteenth Amendment
Smith v. Allwright
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections
The enfranchisement of women in the United States
Wyoming first granted women the right to vote
Nineteenth Amendment
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13. The Fight for Women’s Suffrage …
The Fight for Women’s Suffrage … and Against It
Militant suffragettes demonstrated outside the White House prior to ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which gave women the right to vote. Congress passed the proposed amendment in 1919, and it was ratified by the required number of states in time for the 1920 presidential election. Suffragettes’ demonstrations were occasionally disrupted by men—and other women—who opposed extending the right to vote to women.
Library of Congress
and Against It
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14. Figure 7.2 Voter Registration in the South, 1960, 1980, and 2000
As a result of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and other national actions, black voter registration in the eleven states of the old Confederacy nearly doubled between 1960 and In 2000, there was very little difference between the voting registration rates of white and black voters in the Deep South.
Sources: Data for 1960 and 1980 are from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States, (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1983), p.488; data for 2000 come from the U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Report, P20-542, Table 3, Internet released, 27 February 2002.
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15. Participating Through Voting
Expansion of Suffrage (cont’d)
Evaluating the expansion of suffrage in America
Last major expansion: 26th Amendment in 1971
Lowered voting age to 18
Though process towards generally universal suffrage slow, U.S. still ahead of other countries, including other democracies
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16. Participating Through Voting
Voting on Policies
Progressivism
Proposed several electoral changes:
Direct Primary
Recall
Referendum
Initiative
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17. Figure 7.3 Westward Ho!
This map shows quite clearly the western basis of the initiative, referendum, and recall mechanisms intended to place government power directly in the hands of the people. Advocates of “direct legislation” sought to bypass entrenched powers in state legislatures. Established groups and parties in the East dismissed them as radicals and cranks, but they gained the support of farmers and miners in the Midwest and West. Progressive forces usually aligned with Democrats in western state legislatures to enact their proposals, often against Republican opposition.
Source: National Conference on State Legislatures,
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18. Participating Through Voting
Voting for Candidates
Serves democratic government two ways:
Citizens can choose candidate they think will best represent their interests
Voting allows citizens to re-elect candidates or vote them out of office
U.S. government has few elected officials compared to state and local governments
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19. Explaining Political Participation
Patterns of Participation Over Time
Generally, American participation low but stable over time
Other forms of participation have remained stable
The Standard Socioeconomic Explanation
Socioeconomic status: good indicator of participation
Standard socioeconomic model of participation
Education strongest single factor
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20. Figure 7.4 Effects of Education on Political Participation
Education has a powerful effect on political participation in the United States. These data from a 2008 sample show that level of education is directly related to five different forms of conventional political participation. (Respondents tend to overstate whether they voted.)
Source: This analysis was based on the 2008 American National Election Time Series Study (Ann Arbor, Mich., and Palo Alto, Calif.: University of Michigan and Stanford University).
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21. Explaining Political Participation
Low Voter Turnout in America
The decline in voting over time
26th Amendment – expanded the electorate
Change in attitude towards politics, political parties
Psychological explanations
U.S. turnout versus turnout in other countries
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22. Figure 7.5 The Decline of Voter Turnout: An Unsolved Puzzle
Education strongly predicts the likelihood of voting in the United States. The percentage of adult citizens with a high school education or more has grown steadily since the end of World War II, but the overall rate of voter turnout trended downward from 1960 to 1996 and is still below the levels two decades after the war. Why turnout decreased as education increased is an unsolved puzzle in American voting behavior.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract 1962 and Statistical Abstract 2010, “Table A-1. Years of School Completed by People 25 Years and Over, by Age and Sex: Selected Years 1940 to 2008,” and Harold W. Stanley and Richard G. Niemi, Vital Statistics on American Politics, (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2009), Table 1.1 The percentage voting in elections is based on the eligible voter population, not the voting-age population.
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23. Participation and Freedom, Equality, and Order
Normative Theory
Participation and Equality
Participation and Order
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24. Participation and the Models of Democracy
Participation and Majoritarianism
Majoritarian theory views participation narrowly
Participation and Pluralism
Pluralist model of democracy
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