IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/eeupol/v20y2019i3p341-360.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

More interest in interest: Does poll coverage help or hurt efforts to make more young voters show up at the ballot box?

Author

Listed:
  • Sjoerd B Stolwijk

    (Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

  • Andreas RT Schuck

Abstract

Turnout in second-order elections, like those for the European Parliament, is notoriously low, especially among younger voters. This study compares five pathways in which exposure to poll coverage can affect turnout: bandwagon voting, strategic turnout, increased information efficacy, campaign cynicism and perceived electoral importance. The mediation analyses are combined with Covariate Balancing Propensity Score matching to better account for selection effects. Analyses of a four-wave panel survey of young voters (N = 747) in the 2014 European Parliament Election show that exposure to polls in election coverage predominantly stimulates interest and turnout among young voters. This is in line with the perspective that poll coverage increases perceived electoral importance. Poll coverage can thus play a beneficial role in activating the potential among young voters to engage with (second-order) elections.

Suggested Citation

  • Sjoerd B Stolwijk & Andreas RT Schuck, 2019. "More interest in interest: Does poll coverage help or hurt efforts to make more young voters show up at the ballot box?," European Union Politics, , vol. 20(3), pages 341-360, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:20:y:2019:i:3:p:341-360
    DOI: 10.1177/1465116519837351
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1465116519837351
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1465116519837351?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jens Großer & Arthur Schram, 2010. "Public Opinion Polls, Voter Turnout, and Welfare: An Experimental Study," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(3), pages 700-717, July.
    2. Esteban Klor & Eyal Winter, 2007. "The welfare effects of public opinion polls," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 35(3), pages 379-394, February.
    3. Raymond Hicks & Dustin Tingley, 2011. "Causal mediation analysis," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 11(4), pages 605-619, December.
    4. Morton, Rebecca B. & Muller, Daniel & Page, Lionel & Torgler, Benno, 2015. "Exit polls, turnout, and bandwagon voting: Evidence from a natural experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 65-81.
    5. Kosuke Imai & Marc Ratkovic, 2014. "Covariate balancing propensity score," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 76(1), pages 243-263, January.
    6. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    7. Jürgen Maier & Berthold Rittberger & Thorsten Faas, 2016. "Debating Europe: Effects of the “Eurovision Debate” on EU Attitudes of Young German Voters and the Moderating Role Played by Political Involvement," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 4(1), pages 55-68.
    8. Wouter van der Brug & Katjana Gattermann & Claes H. de Vreese, 2016. "Introduction: How Different Were the European Elections of 2014?," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 4(1), pages 1-8.
    9. Morton, Rebecca B. & Ou, Kai, 2015. "What motivates bandwagon voting behavior: Altruism or a desire to win?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 224-241.
    10. Wattenberg, Martin P. & Brians, Craig Leonard, 1999. "Negative Campaign Advertising: Demobilizer or Mobilizer?," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(4), pages 891-899, December.
    11. Tingley, Dustin & Yamamoto, Teppei & Hirose, Kentaro & Keele, Luke & Imai, Kosuke, 2014. "mediation: R Package for Causal Mediation Analysis," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 59(i05).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Barbara Vis & Sjoerd Stolwijk, 2021. "Conducting quantitative studies with the participation of political elites: best practices for designing the study and soliciting the participation of political elites," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 55(4), pages 1281-1317, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alberto Grillo, 2017. "Risk aversion and bandwagon effect in the pivotal voter model," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 172(3), pages 465-482, September.
    2. Grillo, Alberto, 2019. "Voter turnout and government's legitimate mandate," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 252-265.
    3. Leontiou, Anastasia & Manalis, Georgios & Xefteris, Dimitrios, 2023. "Bandwagons in costly elections: The role of loss aversion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 471-490.
    4. Baghdasaryan, Vardan & Iannantuoni, Giovanna & Maggian, Valeria, 2019. "Electoral fraud and voter turnout: An experimental study," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 203-219.
    5. Marco Faravelli & Kenan Kalayci & Carlos Pimienta, 2020. "Costly voting: a large-scale real effort experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(2), pages 468-492, June.
    6. Alberto Grillo & Eva Raiber, 2022. "Exit polls and voter turnout in the 2017 French elections," AMSE Working Papers 2207, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    7. Gerling, Lena & Kellermann, Kim Leonie, 2019. "The impact of election information shocks on populist party preferences: Evidence from Germany," CIW Discussion Papers 3/2019, University of Münster, Center for Interdisciplinary Economics (CIW).
    8. Eleonora Alabrese & Thiemo Fetzer, 2024. "Opinion Polls, Turnout and the Demand for Safe Seats," CESifo Working Paper Series 11063, CESifo.
    9. Gersbach, Hans & Mamageishvili, Akaki & Tejada, Oriol, 2021. "The effect of handicaps on turnout for large electorates with an application to assessment voting," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    10. Gersbach, Hans & Mamageishvili, Akaki & Tejada, Oriol, 2019. "The Effect of Handicaps on Turnout for Large Electorates: An Application to Assessment Voting," CEPR Discussion Papers 13921, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Cesar Martinelli & Thomas R. Palfrey, 2017. "Communication and Information in Games of Collective Decision: A Survey of Experimental Results," Working Papers 1065, George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science.
    12. Mavridis, Christos & Serena, Marco, 2021. "Complete information pivotal-voter model with asymmetric group size and asymmetric benefits," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    13. Alan Gerber & Mitchell Hoffman & John Morgan & Collin Raymond, 2020. "One in a Million: Field Experiments on Perceived Closeness of the Election and Voter Turnout," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 287-325, July.
    14. Marina Agranov & Jacob K Goeree & Julian Romero & Leeat Yariv, 2018. "What Makes Voters Turn Out: The Effects of Polls and Beliefs," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 825-856.
    15. Leonardo Bursztyn & Davide Cantoni & Patricia Funk & Felix Schönenberger & Noam Yuchtman, 2024. "Identifying the Effect of Election Closeness on Voter Turnout: Evidence from Swiss Referenda," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 22(2), pages 876-914.
    16. Richard J. Cebula & Christopher M. Duquette & Robert Boylan, 2017. "Panel Data Analysis of Regional Differentials in the Registered Voter Turnout Rate and the Expected Benefits of Voting for Minorities," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 45(1), pages 29-34, March.
    17. Bekkouche, Yasmine & Cagé, Julia & Dewitte, Edgard, 2022. "The heterogeneous price of a vote: Evidence from multiparty systems, 1993–2017," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    18. Markku Maula & Wouter Stam, 2020. "Enhancing Rigor in Quantitative Entrepreneurship Research," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 44(6), pages 1059-1090, November.
    19. Bekkouche, Yasmine & Cagé, Julia & Dewitte, Edgard, 2022. "The heterogeneous price of a vote: Evidence from multiparty systems, 1993–2017," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    20. Yasmine Bekkouche & Julia Cage, 2019. "The Heterogeneous Price of a Vote: Evidence from France, 1993-2014," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03393084, HAL.

    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:sae:eeupol:v:20:y:2019:i:3:p:341-360. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.