Editorial: "Health and Political Behavior" : Towards an Integrative Approach

Non peer reviewe

From Generation to Generation : The Role of Grandparents in the Intergenerational Transmission of (Non-)Voting

The literature on the reproduction of political participation across generations has focused almost exclusively on parental effects. Yet, other family members may plausibly play an important role as well. This study explores the role of grandparents in the intergenerational transmission of the propensity to vote. Grandparental effects are theorized in terms of both social learning and status transmission. The analysis takes advantage of a unique dataset that links official turnout data for grandparents, parents, and adult grandchildren with demographic and socioeconomic information from administrative sources. Even controlling for a variety of status-related characteristics, grandchildren are significantly less likely to vote when their grandparents are non-voters. The association between grandparental turnout and the turnout of their adult grandchildren is only partly explained by the mediating effect of parental turnout. Having non-voting grandparents appears to reinforce the effect of having parents who do not vote and may even offset the effects of having parents who are both voters. These results suggest that it is time to take the role of grandparents seriously if we want to understand how political disadvantage is transmitted across generations.Peer reviewe

Using Linked Parent-Child Data and Causal Mediation Analysis to Study Parental Influence on Turnout

Peer reviewe

L’élection fédérale de 1993 : le comportement électoral des Québécois

L’article examine la dynamique de la campagne ainsi que les facteurs qui ont influencé le vote chez trois blocs d’électeurs : les non-francophones, les francophones souverainistes et les francophones non souverainistes. L’analyse se fonde sur les données recueillies dans le cadre de l’Étude sur l’élection canadienne de 1993. On montre que la raison première du succès du Bloc québécois réside dans l’appui indéfectible que lui ont accordé les souverainistes. Le Bloc a également réussi à obtenir l’appui d’une fraction des non souverainistes les plus nationalistes, des jeunes qui étaient insatisfaits des partis traditionnels et de ceux dont la situation économique s’était détériorée. Finalement, le Bloc a profité de la popularité personnelle de Lucien Bouchard.The paper examines the dynamics of the campaign as well as the factors that influenced voting behavior among three blocs of voters: non francophones, francophone sovereignists, and francophone non sovereignists. The analysis is based on survey date collected by the 1993 Canadian Election Study. We show that the primary reason for the success of the Bloc québécois lies in the overwhelming support of the sovereignists. The Bloc was also able to get the support of a fraction of the most nationalist non sovereignists, of younger voters who were dissatisfied with traditional parties, and of those whose personal economic situation had deteriorated. Finally, the Bloc was helped by the personal popularity of its leader, Lucien Bouchard

The Political Integration of Immigrant and Visible Minority Women

This article examines how immigrant and visible minority status, and the intersection of the two, affect women’s ability and willingness to participate in conventional and unconventional political activities. Using a telephone survey undertaken with English-speaking women in nine of Canada’s ten provinces, we find that women’s political integration varies by the type of political activity in question but that it is particularly weak for immigrant women from an ethnic minority. We also find that resource and socio-demographic profiles are limited in their ability to explain participation deficits, especially for unconventional political activity, and that mobilizing networks offer some possible insight into women’s propensity to participate politically

Has the gender gap in voter turnout really disappeared?

According to conventional wisdom, the traditional gender gap in voting has disappeared or even reversed in most established democracies. Drawing on the existing literature on sex differences in political engagement and on pioneering voter turnout theories, this article questions the conventional assumption and hypothesises that women still participate at lower rates in less important elections. It systematically tests this hypothesis by exploring the impact of sex on voter turnout in different electoral arenas. The empirical analyses of two cross-national datasets (Making Electoral Democracy Work and the European Election Study) demonstrate that although there is generally no gender gap in first-order elections, women tend to vote less than men in second-order contests. This reflects women’s weaker interest in politics and their lower levels of knowledge about politics in second-order electoral arenas