Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Blais, André
• Hortala-Vallve, Rafael

Titel

Conformity and Individuals’ Response to Information About Aggregate Turnout

Ist Teil von

• Political behavior, 2021-12, Vol.43 (4), p.1395-1409

Ort / Verlag

New York: Springer US

Erscheinungsjahr

2021

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• How do voters react to information about aggregate turnout? Do high turnout levels mobilize or discourage citizens to vote? We argue that it depends on individuals’ degree of conformity. We argue that in addition to the classic calculus of voting , conformist voters have an added incentive to ‘follow the pack’ and vote when turnout is high while abstain when turnout is low. We conduct two separate experiments, the first a survey experiment with a representative sample of the UK population and the second a lab experiment in Canada. Both studies confirm our hypothesis. These findings highlight the importance of taking individuals’ level of conformity into account when explaining their decision to vote or abstain.