Voter Partisanship and the Effect of Distributive Spending on Political Participation

Abstract

Do distributive benefits increase voter participation? This article argues that the government delivery of distributive aid increases the incumbent party's turnout but decreases opposition-party turnout. The theoretical intuition here is that an incumbent who delivers distributive benefits to the opposing party's voters partially mitigates these voters' ideological opposition to the incumbent, hence weakening their motivation to turn out and oust the incumbent. Analysis of individuallevel data on FEMA hurricane disaster aid awards in Florida, linked with voter-turnout records from the 2002 (prehurricane) and 2004 (post-hurricane) elections, corroborates these predictions. Furthermore, the timing of the FEMA aid delivery determines its effect: aid delivered during the week just before the November 2004 election had especially large effects on voters, increasing the probability of Republican (incumbent party) turnout by 5.1% and decreasing Democratic (opposition party) turnout by 3.1%. But aid delivered immediately after the election had no effect on Election Day turnout. D o government distributive benefits increase voter turnout? Scholars have long argued that non-means-tested entitlement programs cause increased turnout among their beneficiaries. For example, the recipients of agricultural subsidies (Wolfinger and Rosenstone 1980), Social Security (Campbell 2002), and Medicare and veterans' benefits (Mettler and Stonecash 2008; Verba et al. 1993) exhibit higher turnout rates than nonrecipients. At the aggregate level, counties and congressional districts respond to increased distributive spending with higher turnout (Ansolabehere and Snyder 2006; Matsubayashi and Wu 2009). A commonly hypothesized explanation for this positive turnout effect is Lipset's classic argument that one's decision to turn out depends upon the perceived "relevance of government policies to the individual" (1960, 190). Under this theory, as articulated by subsequent scholars (e.g., Campbell 2002; Wolfinger and Rosenstone 1980), the delivery of distributive benefits motivates recipients to protect their

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