Testing Competing Theories of Why Individuals Vote

• In Event: Electoral Democracy, Capitalism and Epistography

Abstract

Downs’ (1957) showed that it was irrational to vote, and irrational to acquire political information, if one’s sole motivation is self-interest. In response, three solutions to why individuals vote have been proposed: expressive identification; civic duty; and or weak altruism.
All past tests of the competing theories have been confined to one theory at a time. Thus, they are not tested against each other, as competitive explanations. First, I commissioned an on-line survey, which includes measures of the competing explanatory variables. No previous survey included all the explanatory variables needed to test the theories against each other. Second, I adopted a non-nested test of the competing hypotheses. Thus, I use the Vuong and Clarke measures of relative goodness-of-fit to evaluate the competing theories.
I find evidence that the altruistic explanation dominates the civic duty explanation. Thus, I test whether altruistic behavior is motivated by sympathy or moral considerations.

Author

• Richard Jankowski, SUNY, Fredonia