IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ratsoc/v4y1992i2p133-156.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Civic Norms, Social Sanctions, and Voter Turnout

Author

Listed:
  • STEPHEN KNACK

    (George Mason University)

Abstract

Voter participation is viewed as a collective action problem overcome chiefly by means of “solidary†and “purposive†selective incentives in the contemporary United States rather than by material incentives. It is argued that these incentives are primarily in the form of civic or societal norms rather than special interest norms associated with partisan or group loyalties as in Uhlaner's (1986) model. The emphasis on civic norms is supported by positive correlations between turnout and other socially cooperative behaviors such as responding to the census, participating in parent-teacher associations, and giving to charities. Data on interpersonal pressures to vote are found to support the hypothesis that “enforcement†of voting norms via social sanctions significantly enhances turnout. The American turnout decline is interpreted in terms of a weakening of social ties adversely affecting the socialization and enforcement of norms responsible for generating civic participation .

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen Knack, 1992. "Civic Norms, Social Sanctions, and Voter Turnout," Rationality and Society, , vol. 4(2), pages 133-156, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:4:y:1992:i:2:p:133-156
    DOI: 10.1177/1043463192004002002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1043463192004002002
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1043463192004002002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Silver, Brian D. & Anderson, Barbara A. & Abramson, Paul R., 1986. "Who Overreports Voting?," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(2), pages 613-624, June.
    2. Buchanan, James M, 1978. "Markets, States, and the Extent of Morals," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(2), pages 364-368, May.
    3. Feldstein, Martin S & Taylor, Amy, 1976. "The Income Tax and Charitable Contributions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(6), pages 1201-1222, November.
    4. Squire, Peverill & Wolfinger, Raymond E. & Glass, David P., 1987. "Residential Mobility and Voter Turnout," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(1), pages 45-65, March.
    5. Dennis, Jack, 1970. "Support for the Institution of Elections by the Mass Public," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 64(3), pages 819-835, September.
    6. Abramson, Paul R. & Aldrich, John H., 1982. "The Decline of Electoral Participation in America," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 76(3), pages 502-521, September.
    7. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65, pages 135-135.
    8. Chapman, Randall G & Palda, Kristian S, 1983. "Electoral Turnout in Rational Voting and Consumption Perspectives," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 9(4), pages 337-346, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Knack, Stephen, 1992. "Civic norms, social sanctions and voting turnout," MPRA Paper 28080, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Eiji Yamamura, 2011. "Effects of social norms and fractionalization on voting behaviour in Japan," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(11), pages 1385-1398.
    3. Mueller, Dennis C. & Stratmann, Thomas, 2003. "The economic effects of democratic participation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(9-10), pages 2129-2155, September.
    4. Valentina A. Bali & Lindon J. Robison & Richard Winder, 2020. "What Motivates People to Vote? The Role of Selfishness, Duty, and Social Motives When Voting," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(4), pages 21582440209, October.
    5. Anna L. Harvey, 2001. "Partisanship As A Social Convention," Rationality and Society, , vol. 13(4), pages 462-504, November.
    6. Allison Dale & Aaron Strauss, 2009. "Don't Forget to Vote: Text Message Reminders as a Mobilization Tool," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(4), pages 787-804, October.
    7. Jeremy Clark & Abel François & Olivier Gergaud, 2020. "Electoral Turnout and Social Capital," Working Papers in Economics 20/13, University of Canterbury, Department of Economics and Finance.
    8. Rachel Milstein Sondheimer & Donald P. Green, 2010. "Using Experiments to Estimate the Effects of Education on Voter Turnout," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 174-189, January.
    9. Christine Fauvelle-Aymar & Abel François, 2018. "Place of registration and place of residence: the non-linear detrimental impact of transportation cost on electoral participation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(3), pages 405-440, September.
    10. Richard B. Freeman, 2003. "What, Me Vote?," NBER Working Papers 9896, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Gebhard Kirchgässner, 2014. "The role of homo oeconomicus in the political economy of James Buchanan," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 2-17, March.
    12. Stefano Dellavigna & John A. List & Ulrike Malmendier & Gautam Rao, 2017. "Voting to Tell Others," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(1), pages 143-181.
    13. Lina Restrepo-Plaza & Enrique Fatas, 2023. "Building inclusive institutions in polarized scenarios," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 34(1), pages 88-110, March.
    14. Yew‐Kwang Ng, 1981. "Bentham or Nash? On the Acceptable Form of Social Welfare Functions," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 57(3), pages 238-250, September.
    15. David Brockington, 2004. "The Paradox of Proportional Representation: The Effect of Party Systems and Coalitions on Individuals’ Electoral Participation," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 52(3), pages 469-490, October.
    16. Abel François & Olivier Gergaud, 2019. "Is civic duty the solution to the paradox of voting?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 180(3), pages 257-283, September.
    17. Bernard Grofman, 1983. "Models of voter turnout: a brief idiosyncratic review," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 55-61, January.
    18. Joseph McMurray, 2015. "The paradox of information and voter turnout," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 13-23, October.
    19. William H. Kaempfer & Anton D. Lowenberg, 1993. "A Threshold Model of Electoral Policy and Voter Turnout," Rationality and Society, , vol. 5(1), pages 107-126, January.
    20. Gintis, Herbert, 2016. "Homo Ludens: Social rationality and political behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 126(PB), pages 95-109.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:4:y:1992:i:2:p:133-156. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.