The Changing American Voter

Nie, Norman H.; Verba, Sidney; Petrocik, John R.

doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674429147

Cited by 592 publications

(279 citation statements)

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“…Newly enfranchised individuals are known to be particularly open to recruitment by new parties and to be largely responsible for such changes as occur in the support for existing parties (Campbell et al, 1960;Butler and Stokes 1974;Nie et al, 1976;Inglehart, 1977Inglehart, , 1990Inglehart, , 1997Rose and McAllister, 1990;Franklin et al, 1992;Franklin and Ladner, 1995;Miller and Shanks, 1996). The same importance of newly enfranchised individuals has been found in regard to turnout Shanks, 1996, Lyons andAlexander, 2000;Putnam, 2000Putnam, , 2002Blais et al, 2001;Franklin and Wessels, 2002;Franklin, 2003;Blais et al, 2004): change in turnout most often comes from a new cohort of voters turning out at a rate that is different from the turnout rate among the previous cohort when they were new.…”

Section: What Causes Generational Effects On Turnout?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Generational Basis of Turnout Decline in Established Democracies

2004

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Voting is a habit. People learn the habit of voting, or not, based on experience in their first few elections. Recent research has shown that elections that do not stimulate high turnout among young adults leave a 'footprint' of low turnout in the age structure of the electorate as many individuals who were new at those elections fail to vote at subsequent elections. Elections that stimulate high turnout leave a high turnout footprint. So a country's turnout history provides a baseline for current turnout that is largely set, except for young adults. This realization requires us to take a new approach to understanding the mainsprings of turnout changeand hence of turnout decline. In this paper, we theorize about the longitudinal effects on turnout of changes in the character of elections, and test this theory using data from every one of the 22 countries that have held elections continuously since 1945: 356 elections in all.

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Section: What Causes Generational Effects On Turnout?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Generational Basis of Turnout Decline in Established Democracies

2004

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“…Turning to the individual candidates, it is clear that although Nie, Verba, and Petrocik (1976) failed to separate policy from performance, they were nevertheless correct in arguing that policy alternatives have become more prevalent in candidate evaluations since 1964. In all the possible comparisons candidates from the 1952-1960 period rank lowest in percentage of policy-related comments.…”

Section: An Alternative Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Throwing the Rascals Out: Policy and Performance Evaluations of Presidential Candidates, 1952–1980

1985

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This article explores two dimensions of public evaluations of presidential candidates on the basis open-ended survey questions from 1952 to 1980. The first dimension looks at whether citizens evaluate candidates on the basis of policies, performance, or strictly candidate attributes; the second examines the time perspective of these assessments, that is, whether they are retrospective or prospective. It is found that incumbents have been judged primarily on the basis of retrospective performance, challengers on prospective policy, and candidates running in nonincumbent races on prospective performance. Throughout the period from 1952 to 1980 both policy and performance considerations have become increasingly related to the vote. Except for 1964, performance has outweighed policy as a predictor of the vote, with an emphasis on retrospective evaluations whenever a incumbent runs for reelection and on prospective assessments in nonincumbent races. The 1964 case provides the best example of a policy mandate, with the 1972 election also fitting the pattern to a lesser degree. The data for the 1980 election, however, fail to support the claim of a mandate for Reagan's policy stands.

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“…Tarrance, 1972;Graber, 1980;O'Keefe, 1975;Pomper, 1975;Shapiro, 1969 Repass (1971), Axelrod (1972), Boyd (1972), Page and Brody (1972), Pomper (1975), Miller and Levitan (1976), Nie, Verba and Petrocik (1976), and others report substantial changes in the electorate in the direction of greater issue consciousness. Pomper and Lederman (1980) synthesized electoral studies over the past two decades, finding that the issue coherence of the average voter has risen dramatically.…”

Section: Attack Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…McGuire (1962) and Pryor and Steinfatt (1978) It is true that recent studies document a general weakening of party identification during the last two decades (Axelrod, 1972(Axelrod, , 1974(Axelrod, , 1978(Axelrod, , 1982(Axelrod, , 1986Boyd, 1972;Brody & Page, 1972;Goldberg, 1966;Miller & Levitan, 1976;Nie, Verba & Petrocik, 1976;Petrocik, 1980;Pomper, 1972aPomper, , 1972bPomper, , 1975Pomper & Lederman, 1980;Repass, 1971;Shapiro, 1969;Stanley, Bianco & Niemi, 1986;Weisberg & Rusk, 1970). This weakening of party identification has swelled the nonaffiliated ranks (a combination of politically apathetic and independent) to more than one-third of the electorate (Public Opinion, 1984, p. 21) and increased the extent of crossover voting (Republican identifiers who vote for Democratic candidates and vice-versa) to more than one-seventh of the electorate (Mann & Wolfinger, 1984, p. 273).…”

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confidence: 99%

Inoculation in Political Campaign Communication

1988

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The use of attack messages in political campaign communication has grown in recent years. This investigation posits a strategy of resistance to the influence of attack messages. A total of 341 initial and follow‐up treatment interviews and 392 control interviews were completed among potential voters in a U.S. Senate campaign during October 1986. We hypothesized that political campaign messages can be designed to inoculate supporters of candidates against subsequent attack messages of opposing candidates. This prediction was supported. In addition, the results supported the hypothesis that inoculation confers more resistance to subsequent attack messages among strong political party identifiers as opposed to weak identifiers, non‐identifiers, and crossovers. The results of this investigation extend the scope of inoculation theory to new domain, and at the same time, suggest a new strategic approach for candidates in political campaigns.

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The Changing American Voter

Cited by 592 publications

References 0 publications

Generational Basis of Turnout Decline in Established Democracies

Generational Basis of Turnout Decline in Established Democracies

Throwing the Rascals Out: Policy and Performance Evaluations of Presidential Candidates, 1952–1980

Inoculation in Political Campaign Communication

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