Why do vote-suppression efforts sometimes fail? Why does police repression of demonstrators sometimes turn localized protests into massive, national movements? How do politicians and activists manipulate people's emotions to get them involved? The authors of Why Bother? offer a new theory of why people take part in collective action in politics, and test it in the contexts of voting and protesting. They develop the idea that just as there are costs of participation in politics, there are also costs of abstention - intrinsic and psychological but no less real. That abstention can be psychically costly helps explain real-world patterns that are anomalies for existing theories, such as that sometimes increases in costs of participation are followed by more participation, not less. The book draws on a wealth of survey data, interviews, and experimental results from a range of countries, including the United States, Britain, Brazil, Sweden, and Turkey.
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1. Introduction: rethinking political participation; 2. Theories of voter participation: a review and a new approach; 3. Testing the costly abstention theory of turnout; 4. Theories of protest participation: a review and a new approach; 5. Testing the costly abstention theory of protest participation; 6. The emotional origins of collective action; 7. Conclusions: criticisms, extensions, and democratic theory.
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'Generations of scholars have puzzled over the reasons people vote and join protests. This book offers a unified theory supported by impressive evidence. Participation emerges, say S. Erdem Aytaç and Susan C. Stokes, through an individual's balancing of the burdens of taking part with those of staying away; and the competing burdens involve moral tensions as well as social pressures. Engagingly written throughout, Why Bother? is resoundingly successful for both its multidisciplinary synthesis and its fresh analysis.' Timur Kuran, Gorter Family Professor of Islamic Studies, Duke University, North Carolina
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Using surveys, experiments, and fieldwork from several countries, this book tests a new theory of participation in elections and protests.

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781108475228
Publisert
2019-01-10
Utgiver
Vendor
Cambridge University Press
Vekt
370 gr
Høyde
236 mm
Bredde
157 mm
Dybde
14 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
172

Biographical note

S. Erdem Aytaç is an assistant professor in the Department of International Relations at Koç University, Istanbul. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University, Connecticut in 2014. Aytaç's research interests lie in political behavior with a focus on democratic accountability and political participation. His previous work has appeared in the Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Behavior, British Journal of Political Science, Political Behavior, and the Journal of Conflict Resolution, among other journals. He is the recipient of the 2016 Young Scientist Award of Science Academy (Turkey) and the 2018 Sakýp Sabancý International Research Award. Susan C. Stokes is the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago.