IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ucn/oapubs/10197-16.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Political interest, cognitive ability and personality : determinants of voter turnout in Britain

Author

Listed:
  • Kevin Denny
  • Orla Doyle

Abstract

This article uses longitudinal data from the National Child Development Study (NCDS) to investigate the determinants of voter turnout in the 1997 British general election. It introduces measures of cognitive ability and personality into the participation literature and finds that they are significant determinants of turnout. It also shows that standard turnout models may be biased by the inclusion of the much used ‘interest in politics' measure. A bivariate probit model of turnout and political interest finds that individuals with high comprehension ability and an aggressive personality are more likely to both turn out to vote and have an interest in politics.

Suggested Citation

  • Kevin Denny & Orla Doyle, 2008. "Political interest, cognitive ability and personality : determinants of voter turnout in Britain," Open Access publications 10197/16, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucn:oapubs:10197/16
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10197/16
    File Function: Open Access version, 2008
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. McMahon, Dorren & Heath, Anthony & Harrop, Martin & Curtice, John, 1992. "The Electoral Consequences of North–South Migration," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(4), pages 419-443, October.
    2. Kevin Denny, 2003. "The effects of human capital on social capital : a cross-country analysis (version 1.6)," Working Papers 200318, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    3. Charles Pattie & Ron Johnston, 2001. "A Low Turnout Landslide: Abstention at the British General Election of 1997," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 49(2), pages 286-305, June.
    4. Dee, Thomas S., 2004. "Are there civic returns to education?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1697-1720, August.
    5. Knack, Stephen & Kropf, Martha, 1998. "For shame! The effect of community cooperative context on the probability of voting," MPRA Paper 27258, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Kevin Denny, 2003. "The effects of human capital on social capital: a cross-country analysis," IFS Working Papers W03/16, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    7. Feddersen, Timothy J & Pesendorfer, Wolfgang, 1996. "The Swing Voter's Curse," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 408-424, June.
    8. Kevin Milligan & Enrico Moretti & Philip Oreopoulos, 2003. "Does Education Improve Citizenship? Evidence from the U.S. and the U.K," NBER Working Papers 9584, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Alford, John R. & Funk, Carolyn L. & Hibbing, John R., 2005. "Are Political Orientations Genetically Transmitted?," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 99(2), pages 153-167, May.
    10. Melissa Osborne & Herbert Gintis & Samuel Bowles, 2001. "The Determinants of Earnings: A Behavioral Approach," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1137-1176, December.
    11. Brady, Henry E. & Verba, Sidney & Schlozman, Kay Lehman, 1995. "Beyond SES: A Resource Model of Political Participation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(2), pages 271-294, June.
    12. Timpone, Richard J., 1998. "Structure, Behavior, and Voter Turnout in the United States," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 92(1), pages 145-158, March.
    13. Swaddle, Kevin & Heath, Anthony, 1989. "Official and Reported Turnout in the British General Election of 1987," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(4), pages 537-551, October.
    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. repec:ucn:wpaper:10197/946 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Kevin Denny & Patrick Orla Doyle, 2005. "Political Interest, Cognitive Ability and Personality - Determinants of Voter Turnout in Britain," Working Papers 200511, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    3. Huang, Jian & Maassen van den Brink, Henriëtte & Groot, Wim, 2009. "A meta-analysis of the effect of education on social capital," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 454-464, August.
    4. Anneli Kaasa, 2018. "Intangible factors and productivity: Evidence from Europe at the regional level," Business and Economic Horizons (BEH), Prague Development Center, vol. 14(2), pages 300-325, April.
    5. Charles Pattie & Patrick Seyd & Paul Whiteley, 2003. "Citizenship and Civic Engagement: Attitudes and Behaviour in Britain," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 51(3), pages 443-468, October.
    6. Valentino Larcinese, 2007. "Does political knowledge increase turnout? Evidence from the 1997 British general election," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 387-411, June.
    7. Kevin Denny & Orla Doyle, 2009. "Does Voting History Matter? Analysing Persistence in Turnout," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(1), pages 17-35, January.
    8. Panu Pelkonen, 2012. "Length of compulsory education and voter turnout—evidence from a staged reform," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 150(1), pages 51-75, January.
    9. Jian Huang & Henriëtte Maassen van den Brink & Wim Groot, 2012. "Does education promote social capital? Evidence from IV analysis and nonparametric-bound analysis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 1011-1034, June.
    10. Edward Glaeser & Giacomo Ponzetto & Andrei Shleifer, 2007. "Why does democracy need education?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 77-99, June.
    11. Giorgio Di Pietro & Marcos Delprato, 2009. "Education and Civic Outcomes in Italy," Public Finance Review, , vol. 37(4), pages 421-446, July.
    12. Kevin Denny & Orla Doyle, 2010. "Returns to basic skills in central and eastern Europe," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 18(1), pages 183-208, January.
    13. Milligan, Kevin & Moretti, Enrico & Oreopoulos, Philip, 2004. "Does education improve citizenship? Evidence from the United States and the United Kingdom," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1667-1695, August.
    14. Philip Oreopoulos & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2009. "How large are returns to schooling? Hint: Money isn't everything," NBER Working Papers 15339, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Poy, Samuele & Schüller, Simone, 2016. "Internet and Voting in the Web 2.0 Era: Evidence from a Local Broadband Policy," IZA Discussion Papers 9991, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Grant Johnston, 2004. "Healthy, wealthy and wise? A review of the wider benefits of education," Treasury Working Paper Series 04/04, New Zealand Treasury.
    17. Campante, Filipe R. & Chor, Davin, 2014. "“The people want the fall of the regime”: Schooling, political protest, and the economy," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 495-517.
    18. Susan Dynarski, 2008. "Building the Stock of College-Educated Labor," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(3), pages 576-610.
    19. R. Urbatsch, 2012. "The paradox of voting intelligently," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 150(3), pages 511-524, March.
    20. Chevalier, Arnaud & Doyle, Orla, 2012. "Schooling and Voter Turnout: Is there an American Exception?," IZA Discussion Papers 6539, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    21. Luis Aranda & Martin Siyaranamual, 2014. "Are Smarter People Better Samaritans? Effect of Cognitive Abilities on Pro-Social Behaviors," Working Papers 2014:06, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Voting research; Political psychology;

    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:ucn:oapubs:10197/16. 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: Nicolas Clifton (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/educdie.html .

    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.