IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v99y1999i1-2p39-55.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why Do People Vote? An Experiment in Rationality

Author

Listed:
  • Blais, Andre
  • Young, Robert

Abstract

The study presents the findings of an experiment conducted during the 1993 Canadian federal election campaign. Students in two universities were exposed to a ten-minute presentation about the rational model of voting and the 'paradox' that so many people vote when it is apparently irrational on a cost-benefit basis. Our data indicate that exposure to the presentation decreased turnout in the election by seven percentage points. This result contributes to the debate about the effect of rational-choice models on real political behavior. More important, the experimental panel data permit the presentation's effect to be decomposed, and this helps explain why people do vote. In this study, turnout was reduced mainly because the presentation diminished the respondents' sense of duty, an effect that was indirect, because there was no reference in the presentation to such motives. Framing the voting act in rational-choice terms induced some students to reconsider whether they should feel obliged to vote. Copyright 1999 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Suggested Citation

  • Blais, Andre & Young, Robert, 1999. "Why Do People Vote? An Experiment in Rationality," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 99(1-2), pages 39-55, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:99:y:1999:i:1-2:p:39-55
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://journals.kluweronline.com/issn/0048-5829/contents
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    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:kap:pubcho:v:99:y:1999:i:1-2:p:39-55. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.