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Expressiveness and Voting

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Abstract

It has been suggested that voting may be an ``expressive''action taken without regard to any hope of actuallyinfluencing election outcomes on the margin. However, therehas been no real-world evidence brought to bear on thequestion of whether the propensity of an individual to voteand the propensity of that same individual to engage in otherforms of ``expressive'' behavior are correlated in anystatistically meaningful sense. Drawing from longitudinal datafound in the National Election Surveys we report compellingevidence of a strong, positive relationship between what weterm ``political expressiveness'' and the act of voting.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Economics and Business Administration, Oglethorpe University, Atlanta, GA, 30319, U.S.A

    Cassandra Copeland

  2. School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, 36849, U.S.A

    David N. Laband

Authors
  1. Cassandra Copeland
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  2. David N. Laband
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Copeland, C., Laband, D.N. Expressiveness and Voting. Public Choice 110, 351–363 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1013093610591

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1013093610591

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