IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ilrrev/v63y2010i3p454-470.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Union Influence on Voter Turnout: Results from Three Los Angeles County Elections

Author

Listed:
  • J. Ryan Lamare

Abstract

Using voting records of several thousand people in South Los Angeles over three local elections in 2003 and 2004, the author examines the effects of political mobilization contacts by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor on voter turnout. Many view Los Angeles as a key example of U.S. labor movement revitalization and regard the County Federation's political acumen paramount to the local labor movement's success. Using logistic regressions, the author measures changes in voter propensity based on union contact for each election. He finds that all types of union contacts (including personal visits and live phone calls) significantly affect the turnout levels of voters, particularly Latinos.

Suggested Citation

  • J. Ryan Lamare, 2010. "Union Influence on Voter Turnout: Results from Three Los Angeles County Elections," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 63(3), pages 454-470, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ilrrev:v:63:y:2010:i:3:p:454-470
    DOI: 10.1177/001979391006300305
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/001979391006300305
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/001979391006300305?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. Richard B. Freeman, 2003. "What Do Unions Do ... to Voting?," NBER Working Papers 9992, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Gerber, Alan S. & Green, Donald P., 2000. "The Effects of Canvassing, Telephone Calls, and Direct Mail on Voter Turnout: A Field Experiment," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 94(3), pages 653-663, September.
    3. Christopher L. Erickson & Catherine L. Fisk & Ruth Milkman & Daniel J. B. Mitchell & Kent Wong, 2002. "Justice for Janitors in Los Angeles: Lessons from Three Rounds of Negotiations," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 40(3), pages 543-567, September.
    4. Alan Gerber & Donald Green, 2001. "Do phone calls increase voter turnout? A field experiment," Natural Field Experiments 00249, The Field Experiments Website.
    5. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    6. Alan Gerber & Donald Green, 2000. "The effects of canvassing, direct mail, and telephone contact on voter turnout: A field experiment," Natural Field Experiments 00248, The Field Experiments Website.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sinisa Hadziabdic & Lucio Baccaro, 2020. "A Switch or a Process? Disentangling the Effects of Union Membership on Political Attitudes in Switzerland and the UK," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(3), pages 466-499, July.
    2. J. Ryan Lamare, 2016. "Labor Unions and Political Mobilization: Diminishing Returns of Repetitious Contact," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(2), pages 346-374, April.

    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. León, Gianmarco, 2017. "Turnout, political preferences and information: Experimental evidence from Peru," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 56-71.
    2. John E. Mcnulty, 2005. "Phone-Based GOTV—What’s on the Line? Field Experiments with Varied Partisan Components, 2002-2003," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 601(1), pages 41-65, September.
    3. Donald P. Green & Jennifer K. Smith, 2003. "Professionalization of Campaigns and the Secret History of Collective Action Problems," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 15(3), pages 321-339, July.
    4. Grácio, Matilde & Vicente, Pedro C., 2021. "Information, get-out-the-vote messages, and peer influence: Causal effects on political behavior in Mozambique," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    5. Michael Haman, 2021. "Recall Elections: A Tool of Accountability? Evidence from Peru," Revista Desarrollo y Sociedad, Universidad de los Andes,Facultad de Economía, CEDE, vol. 87(3), March.
    6. Alan Gerber & Mitchell Hoffman & John Morgan & Collin Raymond, 2020. "One in a Million: Field Experiments on Perceived Closeness of the Election and Voter Turnout," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 287-325, July.
    7. Alberto Chong & Gianmarco León‐Ciliotta & Vivian Roza & Martín Valdivia & Gabriela Vega, 2019. "Urbanization Patterns, Information Diffusion, and Female Voting in Rural Paraguay," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 63(2), pages 323-341, April.
    8. Francesco Drago & Tommaso Nannicini & Francesco Sobbrio, 2014. "Meet the Press: How Voters and Politicians Respond to Newspaper Entry and Exit," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 159-188, July.
    9. Bekkouche, Yasmine & Cagé, Julia & Dewitte, Edgard, 2022. "The heterogeneous price of a vote: Evidence from multiparty systems, 1993–2017," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    10. Janelle S. Wong, 2005. "Mobilizing Asian American Voters: A Field Experiment," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 601(1), pages 102-114, September.
    11. Christopher B. Mann, 2005. "Unintentional Voter Mobilization: Does Participation in Preelection Surveys Increase Voter Turnout?," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 601(1), pages 155-168, September.
    12. 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.
    13. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro & Michael Sinkinson, 2011. "The Effect of Newspaper Entry and Exit on Electoral Politics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 2980-3018, December.
    14. Oberholzer-Gee, Felix & Waldfogel, Joel, 2005. "Strength in Numbers: Group Size and Political Mobilization," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(1), pages 73-91, April.
    15. 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.
    16. Xavier Giné & Ghazala Mansuri, 2018. "Together We Will: Experimental Evidence on Female Voting Behavior in Pakistan," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 207-235, January.
    17. Barone, Guglielmo & de Blasio, Guido, 2013. "Electoral rules and voter turnout," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 25-35.
    18. Richard B. Freeman, 2003. "What, Me Vote?," NBER Working Papers 9896, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Alberto Chong & Gianmarco León & Vivian Roza & Martin Valdivia & Gabriela Vega, 2017. "Urbanization patterns, social interactions and female voting in rural Paraguay," Economics Working Papers 1589, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    20. 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.

    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:ilrrev:v:63:y:2010:i:3:p:454-470. 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: http://www.ilr.cornell.edu .

    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.