A well-established body of literature links voter turnout to political campaigns. In this view, intensive campaigns increase the perceived salience of a decision, fostering information-seeking and, ultimately, turnout. The existing literature has also advanced our understanding of how direct democratic institutions influence turnout in elections. Yet we still know little about whether and to what extent campaign efforts influence voter turnout in direct democratic votes, and we know even less about who is mobilized. We claim that campaign intensity has differentiated effects across voters, depending on voters’ participation profile. To test this claim we use a rich dataset of official turnout data covering more than 40 direct democratic votes in Switzerland. The results support our claim. While intensive political campaigns overall foster citizens to turn out to vote, they do so especially for “selective” (or “intermittent”) voters, who need to decide anew at each ballot whether to turn out or not. Interestingly, we also find that frequent abstainers are not immune from campaign effects, and get almost as strongly mobilized as selective voters in highly intensive campaigns.
This article assesses whether—and to what extent—turnout bias in postelection surveys is reduced by adding a short nonresponse follow-up (NRFU) survey to a mixed-mode survey. Specifically, we examine how the NRFU survey influences response propensities across demographic groups and political factors and whether this affects data quality. We use a rich dataset on validated voter turnout data, collected across two different ballots. In addition to the main survey that comprises computer assisted telephone interviews (CATI) and web respondents, both studies include a short follow-up mail survey for nonrespondents. The results demonstrate that collecting extra information from additional respondents on so-called “central” questions is worth the effort. In both studies, the NRFU survey substantially increases representativeness with respect to sociodemographic and participation variables. In particular, voters and politically active citizens are more accurately represented in the NRFU survey. This tends to result in better estimates of turnout determinants in the final (combined) sample than is seen from CATI/web respondents only. Moreover, the increase in response rate and the decrease in nonresponse bias comes at almost no price in terms of measurement errors. Vote overreporting is only slightly higher in the mail follow-up survey than in the main CATI/web survey.
Social movements can have an impact on institutions by aiming explicitly at institutional change or by pursuing policy goals. In the former situation, their chances of success depends on factors internal and external to the movements. In the latter situation, the contribution of policy-oriented movements to institutional reform can be seen as a by-product of their action. A process of pressure by social movements and adaptation by the political authorities who grant the movements formal concessions makes such impact possible. The latter is usually minor in scope and consists of procedural-administrative changes. The examples of the women's movement, which addresses both the institutions and the public policies, and of the antinuclear movement, which usually challenges the public policies, suggests the existence of a process of pressure and adaptation for both types of movements.
Social movements can have an impact on institutions by aiming explicitly at institutional change or by pursuing policy goals. In the former situation, their chances of success depends on factors internal and external to the movements. In the latter situation, the contribution of policy-oriented movements to institutional reform can be seen as a by-product of their action. A process of pressure by social movements and adaptation by the political authorities who grant the movements formal concessions makes such impact possible. The latter is usually minor in scope and consists of procedural-administrative changes. The examples of the women's movement, which addresses both the institutions and the public policies, and of the antinuclear movement, which usually challenges the public policies, suggests the existence of a process of pressure and adaptation for both types of movements.
Ausgehend vom politischen Prozeβansatz diskutieren wir die Entwicklung der Ökologiebewegung in den letzten zwei Jahrzehnten in mehreren westlichen Ländern. Abgesehen von Frankreich, wo sie aufgrund des spezifischen polirischen Kontextes organisatorisch schwach, in ihren Aktionen radikal und weitgehend ohne Erfolg blieb, hat diese Bewegung in den untersuchten Ländern mitgliederstarke, professionalisierte Organisationen hervorgebracht, sich weitgehend deradikalisiert und zum Teil beachtliche Erfolge erziehlt. Zudem steht die Bevölkerung dieser Länder mehrheitlich hinter ihren Forderungen. Als Folge dieser Entwicklung hat sich. die Bewegung auf Kooperationsformen mit den jeweiligen Regierungen eingelassen, ohne dabei auf konflikthafte Mobilisierung vollends zu verzichten. Die beiden Forschungszweige. der Bewegungs- und der Policyforschung sollten zur Analyse des Interaktionsprozesses zwischen Ökologiebewegung und Regierungen-miteinander verbunden werden. Dies würde es erlauben, den Beitrag, den die Ökologiebewegung zur Politikformulierung und zum Politikvollzug leistet, systematisch zu berücksichtigen. In der Analyse der wechselseitigen Abhängigkeit von Konfrontation und Kooperation in diesem Interaktionsprozeβ sehen wir vielversprechende Forschungsperspektive.
