Why do more people vote--or get involved in other civic and political
activities--in some communities than in others? Why We Vote
demonstrates that our communities shape our civic and political
engagement, and that schools are especially significant communities
for fostering strong civic norms.
Much of the research on political participation has found that levels
of participation are higher in diverse communities where issues
important to voters are hotly contested. In this well-argued book,
David Campbell finds support for this view, but also shows that
homogenous communities often have very high levels of civic
participation despite a lack of political conflict.
Campbell maintains that this sense of civic duty springs not only
from one's current social environment, but also from one's early
influences. The degree to which people feel a sense of civic
obligation stems, in part, from their adolescent experience. Being
raised and thus socialized in a community with strong civic norms
leads people to be civically engaged in adulthood. Campbell
demonstrates how the civic norms within one's high school impact
individuals' civic involvement--even a decade and a half after those
individuals have graduated.
Efforts within America's high schools to enhance young people's sense
of civic responsibility could have a participatory payoff in years to
come, the book concludes; thus schools would do well to focus more
attention on building civic norms among their students.
David E. Campbell is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the
University of Notre Dame. He is a coauthor of Democracy at Risk: How
Political Choices Undermine Citizen Participation, and What We Can Do
About It and The Education Gap: Vouchers and Urban Schools.
Endorsements:
"This book provides the first solid, generalizable evidence of the
influence of an adolescent's surroundings on adult political
behavior. It offers a significant contribution to the study of voter
turnout by showing how citizen duty is a factor in predicting
political participation."--Richard Niemi, University of Rochester
"Why We Vote makes an important contribution to our understanding of
the ways community contexts prompt voting. This clear and compelling
analysis will add energy to the resurgence of interest in the study
of political socialization."--Joseph Kahne, Mills College
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
List of Figures ix
List of Tables xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Chapter One: Introduction: Voting Alone 1
Part One: What You Do Now Depends on Where You Are Now 11
Chapter Two: Putting Madison and Tocqueville to the Test: The Dual
Motivations Theory of Public Engagement 13
Chapter Three: Further Implications of the Dual Motivations Theory 50
Chapter Four: Social Networks 76
Part Two: What You Did Then Depends on Where You Were Then 93
Chapter Five: Social Environments and Adolescents' Public Engagement 95
Part Three: What You Do Now Depends on What You Did Then 129
Chapter Six: The Links between Adolescents' and Adults' Public
Engagement 131
Part Four: What You Do Now Depends on Where You Were Then 145
Chapter Seven: Adolescents' Social Environments and Adults' Public
Engagement: The Civic Motivation Model 147
Chapter Eight: Conclusion: Implications for Theory and Policy 180
Appendix A: Data Sources 201
Appendix B: Questions from the 1996 National Election Study Used in
Table 2.1 and Figure 2.4 204
Appendix C: Full Results of Models Discussed in the Text 208
