Democratic Theory, Nonvoting, and Public Policy

Abstract

This article explores an assumption implicit in democratic theory that appears to motivate much of the research into the causes of abstention: Voters and nonvoters differ on a variety of important politically relevant dimensions. The authors develop several hypotheses from this assumption and the prior research done in this area and test these propositions with data from the 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, and 1988 Center for Political Studies American National Election Studies. The more interesting findings are that voters and nonvoters differ in terms of their positions on some issues, but not by much, and not on all issues; voters are much more likely to form preferences based on policy concerns than are nonvoters; and voters and nonvoters do not differ in terms of whom they prefer for president. Theirfindings suggest that abstention does not result in markedly different political messages being sent to the political system than would have been sent under full participation, and does not reflect a clear potential for different political outputs from the system. Moreover, the pattern among elections is remarkably stable.

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