POLITICAL PARTIES AND VOTERS ACROSS

ERAS

Theda Skocpol

Lecture for USW 31, Monday, October 22, 2012

This Week: U.S. Electoral Democracy

• Today: U.S. voter rights, patterns of participation, and theories/findings about why people participate in politics – or don’t.

• Wednesday: recent partisan shifts; recent changes in modes of voter mobilization and fundraising, especially in the 2008, 2010, and 2012 elections.

Who has the right to vote?

Can legal rights to vote contract?

-- Felon disenfranchisement has grown in the United States since the mid-1970s – disproportionately removing poor and minority people, especially men, from the electorate. About half of those not allowed to vote have fully completed their prison and parole sentences. Their numbers accumulate over time.

-- Around 1% of voting-age population was disenfranchised in 1974; now more than 2.5%, one in forty adults.

-- One in 13 African Americans are disenfranchised. In Florida, Kentucky, and Virginia, more than one in five blacks are disenfranchised.

-- Democratic Party candidates are disproportionately affected by such disenfranchisement, often enough to throw the outcome.

-- Public opinion favors restoring rights to those who have completed sentences. But party politicians do not have the same interests as the general public.Sources: Uggen, Shannon, and Manza, “State-Level Estimates of Felon Disenfranchisement… 2010,” The Sentencing Project, 2012; and Uggen, “What Americans Believe About Voting Rights for Criminals,” Scholars Strategy Network brief, April 2012.

Felon Disenfranchisement

Recent Move to Voter ID Laws

• Less than one in every 15 million efforts to vote involve “in-person” voter fraud. (Fraud is more likely to involve absentee ballots and their handing.)

• Since 2000, almost all U.S. states have considered bills to require voters to present identification at the polls. A lot of laws since 2008 and 2010. In key cases, IDs are restricted to a few kinds of picture IDs issued by government – as of now, in Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas, plus Pennsylvania where the law was stayed for this election.

• Public opinion is now becoming more skeptical about these laws, but many middle class people think IDs are no big deal.

• However, millions of poor, black, Latino, very elderly, and young voters (including some who have voted before) do not have the requisite IDs, and it is hard to get to offices in inconvenient locations with limited hours.

• Study in Indiana: 81% of whites had IDs, but only 55.2% of blacks.

Sources: Hunter, “How the New Voter ID Laws Impede Disadvantaged Citizens,” SSN brief, September 2012; and Weiser and Norden, Voting Law Changes in 2012, Brennan Center for Justice.

Rights to vote are not always exercised…

ELIGIBLE CITIZENS VOTING FOR PRESIDENT, 1920-2008

52.2% 51.9%

61.2% 61.4%63.5%

66.1%

58.8%56.2%

66.8%

63.9% 64.9%

61.0%

57.1%55.0% 54.7%

55.9%

53.0%

58.3%

51.4%

54.2%

60.6%63.0%

67.8%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

1920

1924

1928

1932

1936

1940

1944

1948

1952

1956

1960

1964

1968

1972

1976

1980

1984

1988

1992

1996

2000

2004

2008

Source: Center for Study of the American Electorate, with adjustment for the exclusion of southern African Americans from the electorate, 1920-64.

According to data summarized in Harvard economist Richard Freeman’s “What, Me Vote?”:

• Among counties worldwide that hold elections, the USA until recently ranked 137th out of 138 in turnout.

• Democracies average 73% turnout, but the USA has for some time reached only about 50% in presidential election years (though turnout rose in 2004 and 2008).

•Turnout is always lower in “off year” Congressional elections.

And after careful adjudication of issues in scholarly dispute, Freeman concludes that U.S. voting pattern have become MORE UNEQUAL over time. Declines in turnout have been greater among less privileged voters -- whether we measure strata by income or education.

Recent voting reforms designed to make it easier to vote, sometimes reinforce rather than correct for class and educational biases. As the work of Elizabeth Rigby shows, reforms to add voting days and hours make it easier for those already registered to vote, and they are likely to be more privileged.

The kind of reform that expands and equalizes participation is SAME DAY VOTER REGISTRION.

Forms of Political Participation by High and Low-income Americans

52%

4%

6%

25%

3%

13%

1%

29%

86%

17%

56%

50%

7%

38%

6%

73%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Voting

Campaign work

Campaign contributions

Contacting officials

Protest

Community activity

Involved with local board

Involved in political organization

Percent who reported type of participation

$75,000 and over

Under $15,000

Source: Verba et al. Civic Participation Study.

Income of Voters, Nonvoters, and Noncitizens in the United States

$0

$5,000

$10,000

$15,000

$20,000

$25,000

$30,000

$35,000

$40,000

$45,000

$50,000

All Americans Voters Nonvoters Noncitizens

Med

ian

inco

me

in 1

998

Source: Howard Rosenthal, "Politics, Public Policy, and Inequality," in Social Inequality , edited by Kathryn M. Neckerman, p. 880.

Why do people fail to participate, or participate politically at very unequal rates – including voting, the basic act of citizenship and arguably the simplest thing to do?

WHY PEOPLE MAY NOT PARTICIPATE:

• CANNOT PARTICIPATE: – legal or de facto barriers; – lack resources of money, time, or skill

• DON’T WANT TO: not interested; believe they cannot make a

difference

• NOBODY ASKS: isolated from social networks of recruitment; leaders

are not contacting and mobilizing them

DIFFERENCES IN MOBILIZATION HELP EXPLAIN CONTRASTS OVER TIME AND ACROSS COUNTRIES

• 19th century U.S. parties were rooted in locally based networks with patronage-oriented elites who worked hard to turn out voters; parties had ties to other local groups such as unions, ethnic associations, and fire companies.

• Many twentieth century European democracies have strong labor parties or Catholic parties with community roots and ties to groups of voters; these parties have been much better than modern U.S. parties at contacting and turning out less educated, less well-to-do, and less interested voters.

• With some exceptions, U.S. forms of participation and mobilization favor the rich and the well-educated, who are knowledgeable and interested as individuals.

An interesting exception:

Voting and political participation by the elderly in recent decades.

ELDERLY VOTING HAS INCREASED OVER TIME

Source: Andrea Louise Campbell, HOW POLICIES MAKE CITIZENS, p. 29.

Source: Andrea Louis Campbell, HOW POLICIES MAKE CITIZENS, p. 29.

LESS INEQUALITY IN TURNOUT AMONG ELDERLY

Source: Andrea Louise Campbell, HOW POLICIES MAKE CITIZENS, p. 46.

Why has participation increased among the elderly in America – and why are inequalities in participation mitigated among the elderly?

Campbell’s research in How Policies Make Citizens shows that Social Security and Medicare – generous, highly visible social benefits available to all of the elderly regardless of income – have drawn their interest, and increased the stakes of political participation.

Apart from the elderly, until 2004 to 2008, several forces have combined to decrease participation, especially by the less privileged. .

• From the 1970s, U.S. political parties shifted from direct voter mobilization toward fund-raising and impersonal messages to support the most immediately viable candidates in each cycle.

• Candidates must individually develop organizations with pollsters, media consultants, and networks of fund-raisers.

• Early and large flows of money are critical, especially for presidential and Senate campaigns. Now wealthy and corporations can give unlimited amounts in secret.

• Advocacy groups influence politics by raising money or arousing activists. Both “political action committees” and issue-oriented interest groups have proliferated.

CHANGES IN PARTIES AND ELITE STRATEGIES

A study by Alan Gerber and Donald Green (American Political Science Review, September 2000) explores HOW voters are mobilized:

• Recent national trend data suggest that parties and campaigns are contacting voters at about the same rates over time -- but impersonal contacts by mail or phone have displaced personal, face-to-face contact.

• In a “field experiment,” the researchers teamed up with the League of Women Voters in New Haven, to arrange experimentally controlled contacts with voters via three mailings, phone calls, and face-to-face canvassing.

• Which mode of contact would effectively boost voter turnout -- controlling for past voting, education, and other standard predictive variables?

GERBER AND GREEN’S FINDINGS:

• Telephone calls from professional canvassers have no effect on turnout. Three mailings in the two weeks before the election boost turnout about 2%. Face-to-face contact boosts turnout by about 10-13%.

• “This experiment provides important new clues in the ongoing mystery of why turnout has declined even as the average age and education of the population has risen. A certain segment of the electorate tends not to vote unless encouraged to do so through face-to-face contact. As voter mobilization grows more impersonal, fewer people receive this kind of encouragement…. The question is whether the long-term decay of civic and political organizations has reached a point that our society no longer has the infrastructure to conduct face-to-face canvassing on a large scale.”

SOME LARGE ASSOCIATIONS AND MOVEMENTS STILL MOBILIZE PEOPLE INTO POLITICS

• Christian right groups, based in evangelical church networks: Christian Coalition, National Right to Life Committee, and others

• Environmental movement: including groups like the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society with state or local chapters

• AARP, with over 35 million members who receive mailings, and often congregate in local settings and talk politics

• National Rifle Association: huge budget and network of clubs

• Teachers’ unions: teachers are everywhere!

• AFL-CIO since 1990s (now separate union federations)

• Tea Party in 2010 and beyond

CHURCHES AND UNIONS ARE THE GROUPS MOST LIKELY

TO DRAW LESS PRIVILEGED AMERICANS INTO POLITICS

• Churches involve Americans relatively equally across class lines; and Americans are a very church-going people. Evangelical Protestant churches are growing, and they connect people to conservative politics.

• Labor unions have a powerful effect on levels of voter turnout both cross-nationally and across the U.S. states. Unions directly mobilize workers. And they also affect the ideological messages of the parties in ways that cause left parties to appeal more directly to the concerns of lower and middle-class citizens.

(Source: Radcliff and Davis, Amer. J. of Political Science, January 2000)

• U.S. labor unions become much more politically active and effective in electoral mobilization in the mid-1990s

• But they continue to lose membership overall: long-term decline since they enrolled more than 30% of the labor force in the mid-1950s; fell to the low teens in recent years (and less than 6% of the private labor force).

• Unions have an even harder time organizing during economic downturns and Republican administrations.

Source: Robert D. Putnam, BOWLING ALONE, p. 81.

Union Members in U.S. Workforce, 2000-2010

0%

2%

4%

6%

8%

10%

12%

14%

16%

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Un

ion

me

mb

ers

as

% o

f a

ll e

mp

loy

ee

s

Union members inpublic sector

Union members inprivate sector

11.9%12.4%

13.4%12.5%

13.3%

12.0%

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics.

• To understand political participation, we need to understand differences in individuals’ resources and motivations -- and also see which organizations and elites are committed to asking people to get involved.

• Political parties matter, but so do social movements and voluntary associations through which people can be directly or indirectly contacted or receive messages about politics.

• Government policies can stimulate participation – or discourage it.

IN SUM:

IMPLICATIONS FOR ELECTION REFORMS:

• Getting big money out of politics may not be enough (even if it is possible). The goal must be to get more people involved through social contacts and pressures.

• Removing institutional obstacles to individual participation also not enough (except same-day registration reforms).

•Building inclusive interpersonal networks and locally rooted campaigns may help. Next lecture: recent developments – especially innovations of the 2008 Obama campaign and the eruption of the Tea Party.