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Simple Explanations of Turnout Decline

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Carol A. Cassel  and
Robert C. Luskin
Carol A. Cassel
Affiliation:
University of Alabama
Robert C. Luskin
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
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Abstract

Several recent studies have claimed to explain the post-1960 decline in U.S. presidential and congressional election turnout in terms of just a few variables. Abramson and Aldrich (1982) attribute the great bulk of the decline to aggregate declines in partisanship and political efficacy. Shaffer (1981) attributes still more of the decline to aggregate decreases in these same two variables plus age and following the campaign in the newspapers. And Kleppner (1982) attributes “virtually all” of the decline to aggregate decreases in the first three of these variables. We show how these studies measure explanation too generously and how the very short-handedness of their models makes them seem more successful than they are. These few variables, we conclude, leave most of the decline unexplained.

Type
Research Notes
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 82 , Issue 4 , December 1988 , pp. 1321 - 1330
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1988

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