Why We Vote

by Campbell, David E.

• ISBN13: 9780691138299
• ISBN10: 069113829X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-07-21
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

Why do more people vote--or get involved in other civic and political activities--in some communities than in others?Why We Votedemonstrates that our communities shape our civic and political engagement, and that schools are especially significant communities for fostering strong civic norms. Much of the research on political participation has found that levels of participation are higher in diverse communities where issues important to voters are hotly contested. In this well-argued book, David Campbell finds support for this view, but also shows that homogenous communities often have very high levels of civic participation despite a lack of political conflict. Campbell maintains that this sense of civic duty springs not only from one's current social environment, but also from one's early influences. The degree to which people feel a sense of civic obligation stems, in part, from their adolescent experience. Being raised and thus socialized in a community with strong civic norms leads people to be civically engaged in adulthood. Campbell demonstrates how the civic norms within one's high school impact individuals' civic involvement--even a decade and a half after those individuals have graduated. Efforts within America's high schools to enhance young people's sense of civic responsibility could have a participatory payoff in years to come, the book concludes; thus schools would do well to focus more attention on building civic norms among their students.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. ix
List of Tables	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Introduction: Voting Alone	p. 1
What You Do Now Depends on Where You Are Now	p. 11
Putting Madison and Tocqueville to the Test: The Dual Motivations Theory of Public Engagement	p. 13
Further Implications of the Dual Motivations Theory	p. 50
Social Networks	p. 76
What You Did Then Depends on Where You Were Then	p. 93
Social Environments and Adolescents' Public Engagement	p. 95
What You Do Now Depends on What You Did Then	p. 129
The Links between Adolescents' and Adults' Public Engagement	p. 131
What You Do Now Depends on Where You Were Then	p. 145
Adolescents' Social Environments and Adults' Public Engagement: The Civic Motivation Model	p. 147
Conclusion: Implications for Theory and Policy	p. 180
Data Sources	p. 201
Questions from the 1996 National Election Study Used in Table 2.1 and Figure 2.4	p. 204
Full Results of Models Discussed in the Text	p. 208
Notes	p. 223
Bibliography	p. 243
Index	p. 261
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