The democratic engagement of Britain's ethnic minorities

Democratic engagement is a multi-faceted phenomenon that embraces citizens' involvement with electoral politics, their participation in ‘conventional’ extra-parliamentary political activity, their satisfaction with democracy and trust in state institutions, and their rejection of the use of violence for political ends. Evidence from the 2010 BES and EMBES shows that there are important variations in patterns of democratic engagement across Britain's different ethnic-minority groups and across generations. Overall, ethnic-minority engagement is at a similar level to and moved by the same general factors that influence the political dispositions of whites. However, minority democratic engagement is also strongly affected by a set of distinctive ethnic-minority perceptions and experiences, associated particularly with discrimination and patterns of minority and majority cultural engagement. Second-generation minorities who grew up in Britain are less, rather than more, likely to be engaged

Unequal at the Starting Line: Creating Participatory Inequalities across Generations and among Groups

Governmen

Voting Characteristics of Individuals With Traumatic Brain Injury

Voting is the foundation of democracy. Limited data exist about voting characteristics of individuals with neurologic impairment including those living with a traumatic brain injury (TBI). To statistically examine voting characteristics using a convenience sample of registered voters with TBI during elections held in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina—2007, 2008. Data were collected on 51 participants with TBI during May 2007, 2008 general, and 2008 Presidential Election. (i) There was a significant difference between the Competence Assessment Tool for Voting (CAT‐V) total score of participants with TBI who voted and the CAT‐V total score of participants with TBI who did not vote and the CAT‐V total score predicted voting; (ii) the age of the participants with TBI was predictive of voting; and (iii) being married was inversely related to voting. We find that there is variation in voting even among this small sample interviewed for the present study, and that the variation is predictable. Those with the highest CAT‐Vs are most likely to vote. In addition, we find that traditional predictors of voting simply are not predictors among this TBI group, and even one, whether the person is married, has a negative effect on voting

Introduction

Abstract This text evaluates the intellectual developments and challenges in the field of American elections and political behavior. The organization of the volume was guided by two observations. First, that the study of American elections and political behavior reflects both the advances and challenges of seeking to understand the political world through empirical scientific approaches. Second, that the realities of American elections and political behavior have changed over the past fifty years. This book discusses the issues in research design, primarily highlighting the varied approaches that mark the field today. It also concentrates on laboratory and field experiments, along with formal modeling. It then shifts to the more ‘substantive’ topics of political participation, vote choice, and interests in American electoral politics. The non-presidential elections are also described. Furthermore, overviews and critical analyses of the study of individuals, elections, and representation are presented.</jats:p

On the Representativeness of Voters

This chapter considers a critical aspect of the potential consequences of turnout, that is, whether voters are representative of nonvoters with respect to their preferred policy positions. It briefly reviews the handful of studies that have addressed the question of the representativeness of voters, and then replicate some of Wolfinger and Rosenstone's (1980) evidence for 1972 with 2008 data. It then tests expectations regarding the distinctiveness of voters' preferences using data from the 1972–2008 American National Election Studies, as well as the 2004 National Annenberg Election Study, comparing the policy preferences of voters and nonvoters on redistributive issues, as well as a variety of other policy issues. The chapter finds concludes that the seeming consensus that it would not matter if everyone voted is simply wrong, and has been wrong for a long time. That these differences have been ignored in political discourse as well as scholarly research is all the more striking given the increase in economic inequality experienced in the United States.</p