Shifting Inequalities - Patterns of Exclusion and Inclusion in Emerging Forms of Political Participation. European Societies 13 (1): 119-142.
Dietlind Stolle and Marc Hooghe (2010)

Participation patterns in industrialized democracies have changed considerably since a couple of decades. While institutionalized forms of participation (e.g., party membership) are declining, we can observe a rise in the occurrence of non-institutionalized forms of political participation. In this article we pose the question what the effect of this trend has been for patterns of political stratification during the period 1974-2002. It can be observed that gender differences have been substantially reduced and in some cases even reversed for non-institutionalized participation and women tend to be more active in these forms than men. Younger age groups also clearly have a preference for non-institutionalized forms. Stratification based on education level, however, remains on the same level as compared to the 1970ès. These findings are conformed by a longitudinal analysis of Dutch Election Studies data for the period 1971-1998. We conclude that the emergence of new forms of political participation might have reduced age and gender based inequalities, it does not offer a solution for inequalities based on education level.

The Political Socialization of Young People in Canada: Is There a Differential Effect of Citizenship Education on Visible Minorities? . Canadian Journal of Political Science 42: 613-636.
Ellen Claes, Dietlind Stolle and Marc Hooghe (2009)

It is assumed that civic education has persistent effects on political attitudes and behaviours of young citizens. There is no consensus, however, on what kind of efforts have the strongest effects on specific outcomes, like political knowledge and intended political participation. In some of the older literature, it has been shown that effects of civic education are stronger for children from a visible minority background. This article takes up these questions using a dataset with a sample of 15-17-year olds from Canada (n=3,334). The results show that active efforts for civic education can make a difference. Especially community service, a rather new form of civic education, fosters political knowledge and conventional future participation. However, in Canada, adolescents from a visible minority background do not benefit disproportionately from civic education efforts.

Do Diverse Networks Demobilize Young People? . European Journal on Child and Youth Research 3 (7): 86-92.
(2009)

This article looks at the effects of social network diversity on political participation among youth by focusing on the peers with whom young people have regular contact. Since young people in Western democracies are increasingly socialised in diverse personal and public environments, our question is about whether and how social network diversity matters for young people's political engagement. More specifically, we examine how different types of network diversity in strong and weak ties influence political participation among young people in Canada and Belgium.

Engagement and Civic Attitudes in Cross-National Perspective: Introduction to the Symposium. Political Studies 56: 1-11.
Dietlind Stolle and Marc Morjé Howard (2008)

The Generational Divide, Social Capital, and Political Support: Evidence from the World Values Surveys. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice 10 (2): 47-74..
Mebs Kanji (2008)

Review Article: Inaccurate, Exceptional, One-Sided or Irrelevant? The Debate about the Alleged Decline of Social Capital and Civic Engagement in Western Societies. British Journal of Political Science 35 (1): 149-167.
Dietlind Stolle and Marc Hooghe (2005)

Political Trust and the Vote in Multiparty Elections: The Canadian Case. European Journal of Political Research 44 (1): 121-146.
Éric Bélanger and Richard Nadeau (2005)

While the causes of declining political trust have been investigated extensively in the literature, much less empirical effort has been devoted to the study of its behavioural implications. This article focuses on the decline of trust in Canada during the period 1984 to 1993, and on its effect on Canadian voting behaviour. We build upon M.J. Hetherington's (èThe effect of political trust on the presidential vote, 1968-1996', American Political Science Review 93 (1999): 311-326) work to explore the impact of political trust on the vote and on abstention in a multiparty electoral context. Multinomial logit estimations are performed using individual-level survey data from three Canadian federal elections. While distrust is shown to significantly affect electoral participation, thus acting as an alienating factor, the results indicate that decreasing trust acts more as a motivation to support third-party alternatives. The study further demonstrates that, in a multiple party setting, èold-line' major parties electorally suffer from declining political trust, but some third parties benefit more from this phenomenon than others. Contrary to what was the case in the previous two elections, distrustful individuals in 1993 were more likely to vote for the Reform Party or the Bloc Québécois than support the New Democratic Party.

The Impact of Mobilization Media on Off-Line and Online Participation: Are Mobilization Effects Medium-Specific? . Social Science Computer Review.
Sara Vissers, Marc Hooghe, Dietlind Stolle, Valérie-Anne Mahéo (2011)

In recent years, voluntary associations and political organizations have increasingly switched to Internet-based mobilization campaigns, replacing traditional forms of face-to-face recruitment and mobilization. The existing body of empirical research on Internet-based mobilization, however, is not conclusive about the effects this form of mobilization might have. In this article, the authors argue that this lack of strong conclusions might be due to the failure to distinguish different behavioral outcomes of mobilization, and more specifically, a distinction between online and off-line forms of participation is missing. In this experimental study, participants were exposed to potentially mobilizing information either by way of face-to-face interaction or by website. The results of the experiment indicate that web-based mobilization only has a significant effect on online participation, whereas face-to-face mobilization has a significant impact on off-line behavior, which would imply that mobilization effects are medium-specific. The authors close with some observations on what these findings might imply for the democratic consequences of the current trend toward an increasing reliance on Internet-based forms of political mobilization.

The Potential of Internet Mobilization: An Experimental Study on the Effect of Internet and Face-to-Face Mobilization Efforts. Political Communication 28.
Marc Hooghe, Sara Vissers, Dietlind Stolle and Valérie-Anne Mahéo (2010)

In recent years, voluntary associations and political organizations have increasingly relied on Internet-based mobilization campaigns, replacing traditional forms of face-to-face recruitment and mobilization. Within the literature, one can observe an intensive debate about the possible consequences of this transition. Most importantly, the question is whether political mobilization through the Internet is just as effective as mobilization in a face-to-face setting. In this article, we report on a mobilization experiment using both traditional (face-to-face) and modern (Web site) incentives for mobilization. The experiment was conducted among undergraduate students in Belgium and Canada and included a test of medium-term mobilization effects. Results suggest that the Internet is successful in transferring knowledge and raising issue salience among respondents, but neither experimental manipulation led to significant behavioral changes. We do not find any indication that among this experimental sample Internet-based mobilization would be less effective than traditional face-to-face forms of mobilization.

Communication Technology. UBC Press..
Darin Barney (2010)

Politieke mobilisatie en nieuwe communicatietechnologie: een multilevel studie van de digital divide. (Political Mobilization and New Communication Technology: A Multilevel Study on the Digital Divide.) . Academia Press.
Stefaan Walgrave, Marc Hooghe, Lance Bennett and Dietlind Stolle (2010)

The basic, underlying question in this book, therefore, is whether the Internet is expected to have a positive or negative impact on the democratic character of participation and mobilization in Western democracies. This book develops a more comprehensive assessment of the democratic potential of ICT, by incorporating individual level, organizational level, and political system level perspectives. The book consists of a series of substudies tackling each of these three levels: (1) An overview of inequalities with regard to individual Internet use and its consequences for political participation (micro); (2) An analysis of the way social movement organizations use ICT to develop coalitions and to reach out to potential participations (meso); (3) A study on Internet as a campaign tool for political parties (micro); (4) A study on the effectiveness of Internet mobilization for social and political organizations (micro); (5) A comparative study on the way social movements use ICT for transnational mobilization (meso); (6) A policy oriented study on the organization of e-government as a way to support the communication flow between citizens and the political system (macro). In term of approach, the study is internationally innovative through the conceptualization of both the independent variable, i.e. ICT use, and the dependent variable, i.e. frequency/ kind of Internet use, across different levels. Together with the comparative approach the researchers are able to give a comprehensive answer to the question how ICT has an impact on democratic participation and mobilization.

Les campagnes électorales sur Internet : une comparaison entre France et Québec. Hermès 54 : 209-217.
Frédérick Bastien and Fabienne Greffet (2009)

La littérature académique sur la communication électorale par Internet s'est considérablement enrichie ces dernières années, mettant l'accent sur les pratiques interactives offertes par les sites des partis et candidats, et sur les possibilités de transformations de la compétition électorale que recélerait ce média. Cependant, cette réflexion est rarement reliée aux transformations observées hors ligne, - la fois dans les stratégies et les pratiques de campagnes, et dans l'organisation des partis politiques. Les 'netcampagnes' électorales procèdent-elles de formes post-modernes marquées par l'omniprésence du marketing politique ? Préfigurent-elles la constitution de 'cyber-partis', c'est---dire d'organisations dans lesquelles les relations entre électeurs et direction se désinstitutionnalisent, deviennent plus ponctuelles et sont médiatisées par la technique? Ne présentent-elles pas, au-del- de ces tendances globales, des particularités liées au cadre institutionnel, au système de partis, - l'accès aux médias dans chaque pays? Ces questionnements fondent la présente analyse du contenu des sites Web des partis lors des campagnes législatives tenues en France et au Québec en 2007.

Politics and Emerging Media: The Revenge of Publicity. (summary) Global Media Journal - Canadian Edition 1 (1): 89-106.
Darin Barney (2008)

Emerging media technologies and applications have accompanied by an explosion of diverse means and practices for engaging in public life, raising the possibility of an invigorated and improved democratic politics. Investment in this possibility is premised on acceptance of the norms associated with publicity, specifically access to information and enhanced communication. Starting from the premise that democracy is a term whose defining attributes are best understood as the politicization of moral and ethical questions and equality (as opposed to a characteristic set of procedures and practices), the discussion in this paper investigates the potential for democratic participation via Web 2.0 platforms such as Facebook and other social networking sites. What emerges from this exercise is the recognition that within the contemporary context, information, communication and participation stand-in for motivation, judgment and action when it comes to democratic politics. This implies, in turn, that we may be settling for publicity in the place of the more the demanding democratic goods of politicization and equality. Somewhat more ominously, the popular embrace of these surrogates via emerging media technologies may actually undermine the prospect of a politics aimed at more radical outcomes.

The Morning After: Citizen Engagement in Technological Society. . Techn?: Research in Philosophy and Technology 9 (3): 23-31.
Darin Barney (2006)

The Problem of Education in Technological Society . International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society 1 (4): 107-114.
Darin Barney (2005)

This lecture concerns the triangular relationship between education, technology and citizenship. It proceeds from the premise that technological societies pose special challenges for citizenship, and that education - historically understood to be necessary for the cultivation of citizenship - plays a particular role in response to these challenges. Does the role imagined for education in so-called "knowledge-based society" attend adequately to the problem of citizenship in technological society? This lecture critically explores a number of philosophical and practical approaches to addressing.

Education and Citizenship in the Digital Age. Techn?: Research in Philosophy and Technology 9 (1): 1-7.
Darin Barney and Aaron Gordon (2005)

Her Mother's Daughter? The Influence of Childhood Socialization on Women's Political Engagement. (summary) Journal of Women, Politics and Policy 31 (4): 334-355.
Elisabeth Gidengil, Brenda O'Neill and Lisa Young (2010)

This paper argues that early exposure to polities in the home can serve to counteract the effects of female socialization. Using data from a survey of women in English-speaking Canada, we examine the effect of parents' political activity on their adult daughter's interest in politics, political knowledge, and participation in both electoral (voting and party membership) and non-electoral (demonstrating, signing petitions and political consumerism) forms of political action. The results demonstrate that a politically active mother n have a role-model effect and that her influence typically outweighs that of a politically active father.

What do Women Really Know? A Gendered Analysis of Varieties of Political Knowledge. Perspectives on Politics 8 (1): 93-109.
Dietlind Stolle and Elisabeth Gidengil (2010)

While studies typically find that women know less about politics than do men, feminist scholars have argues that these findings reflect gender-biased measures that underestimate women's political knowledge. This article evaluates the feminist critique by taking a more expansive view of what constitutes political knowledge. Using data from a large Canadian urn sample, we show that gender gaps close or even reverse when people are queried about more practical aspects of political knowledge, such as government benefits and services. Our results also demonstrate that this type of knowledge is more equally distributed than its conventional counterpart, though the women who are the most likely to need government services and benefits are often the least likely to know about them. Finally, we show that knowledge of government services and benefits has a significant effect on women's intended vote choice. This article thus shoos that more practical types of political knowledge might serve as meaningful additions to existing definitions and measures of political knowledge.

Equal Participation but Separate Paths? Women's Social Capital and Turnout. Journal of Women, Politics and Policy 30 (1): 1-22.
Allison Harell (2009)

Conventional models of voter turnout lead us to expect men to vote in greater numbers than women. Yet in advanced industrialized democracies, women tend to participate in elections as much, or more, than men do. This study addresses this puzzle by drawing on the social capital literature to help explain the paradox of voter turnout for women. Women are in fact rich" in various forms of social capital

The Gender Gap in Self-Perceived Understanding of Politics in Canada and the United States . (summary) Politics & Gender 4: 535-561.
Elisabeth Gidengil, Janine Giles and Melanee Thomas (2008)

Despite the gains women have made since the advent of second-wave feminism, women remain less confident than men of their ability to understand politics. This gender gap has remained unchanged for decades, yet it has attracted surprisingly little scholarly attention in recent years. This article uses data from the 2000 American and 2004 Canadian election studies to assess whether differences in women's and men's socioeconomic resources help to explain the gender gap. We also examine whether there are differences in the ways that socioeconomic resources affect women's and men's self-perceived ability to understand politics. We focus particular attention on the effects of parenthood on women's confidence in their understanding of politics. Finally, we consider the role of feminism and gender role conceptions.

The Role of Social Networks in Immigrant Women's Political Incorporation. International Migration Review 43 (4): 727-763.
Elisabeth Gidengil and Dietlind Stolle (2009)

This article examines how immigrant women's social networks affect their propensity to vote and to participate in unconventional political activities, as well as their knowledge of politics and government services and programs. Our primary source of data is a telephone survey of women living in Canada's two largest metropolitan areas. Our findings show that contrary to the social capital literature, bonding ties do not exert strong negative effects on political incorporation, while bridging ties are not as helpful as hypothesized. What is important for immigrant women are the resources that are embedded in their social networks.

Immigrants' Voice through Protest Politics in Canada and Australia: Assessing the Impact of Pre-Migration Political Repression. (summary) Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 34 (6): 975-1002.
Antoine Bilodeau (2008)

This paper examines immigrant participation in protest politics in Canada and Australia. It focuses on the related impact of immigrants' pre-migration experience of political repression. Three main findings emerge. First, immigrants from repressive regimes abstain more from protest politics than those from non-repressive regimes. Second, the higher the degree of repression in the country of origin, the more likely immigrants are to abstain from protest politics. Third, even after living for 30 years in the host country, some groups of immigrants continue to abstain from protest politics to a greater degree than the local population. This article contributes, therefore, to two understudied aspects of immigrants' political adaptation: immigrant participation in protest activities and the impact of their pre-migration experiences.

Fashioning Social Justice through Political Consumerism, Capitalism, and the Internet. (summary) Cultural Studies 22 (5): 749-769.
Michele Micheletti and Dietlind Stolle (2008)

Consumers, consumer goods, brand names, logos, and corporations are increasingly important in global struggles for social justice. Global social justice networks use a variety of innovative means to encourage shoppers to consider the hidden politics behind consumer goods and corporate brand names. They are using this power of mobilization to push transnational corporations to take more responsibility for the social consequences of their policy and practice. There is also a èpull factor' in late market capitalism in the form of new market actors, structures, and vulnerabilities that are pulling global corporations into progressive social change. This article studies the role of the outside (market external) push factor of political consumerism and the role of the inside (market internal) capitalist pull factor in fashioning global social justice. It discusses the three basic forms of political consumerism and why political consumerism has become a global political force. It uses the contemporary anti-sweatshop movement to illustrate how political consumerism puts claims on the global economy. By drawing on historical scholarship on the importance of the rise of capitalism for anti-slavery in the 1700s and 1800s, the article argues that late capitalism makes buyer-driven corporations consider global social values in their production practices. A special section focuses on how a particular case of culture jamming combines the push and pull factors to capitalize on the vulnerabilities of late capitalism by using innovative corporate Internet marketing to communicate global anti-sweatshop politics.

Mobilizing Consumers to Take Responsibility for Global Social Justice. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 611 (1): 157-175..
Michele Micheletti and Dietlind Stolle (2007)

This article studies the antisweatshop movement's involvement in global social justice responsibility-taking. The movement's growth (more than one hundred diverse groups) makes it a powerful force of social change in the new millennium. The rise of global corporate capitalism has taken a toll on political responsibility. As a response, four important movement actors-unions, antisweatshop associations, international humanitarian organizations, and Internet spin doctors-have focused on garment-production issues and mobilized consumers into vigilant action. The authors examine these actors, their social justice responsibility claims, and their views on the role of consumers in social justice responsibility-taking. The authors determine four paths of consumer action: (1) support group for other causes, (2) critical mass of shoppers, (3) agent of corporate change, and (4) ontological force for societal change. The authors find that the movement mobilizes consumers through actor-oriented and event-specific (episodic) framing and offer a few results on its ability to change consumer patterns and effect corporate change.

Politics in the Supermarket: Political Consumerism as a Form of Political Participation. International Political Science Review 26 (3): 245-269.
Dietlind Stolle, Marc Hooghe, and Michele Micheletti (2005)

Both anecdotal and case-study evidence have long suggested that consumer behavior such as the buying or boycotting of products and services for political and ethical reasons can take on political significance. Despite recent claims that such behavior has become more widespread in recent years, political consumerism has not been studied systematically in survey research on political participation. Through the use of a pilot survey conducted among 1015 Canadian, Belgian, and Swedish students, we ascertain whether political consumerism is a sufficiently consistent behavioral pattern to be measured and studied meaningfully. The data from this pilot survey allow us to build a political consumerism index" incorporating attitudinal

Immigrants' Voice through Protest Politics in Canada and Australia: Assessing the Impact of Pre-Migration Political Repression. (summary) Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 34 (6): 975-1002.
Antoine Bilodeau (2008)

This paper examines immigrant participation in protest politics in Canada and Australia. It focuses on the related impact of immigrants' pre-migration experience of political repression. Three main findings emerge. First, immigrants from repressive regimes abstain more from protest politics than those from non-repressive regimes. Second, the higher the degree of repression in the country of origin, the more likely immigrants are to abstain from protest politics. Third, even after living for 30 years in the host country, some groups of immigrants continue to abstain from protest politics to a greater degree than the local population. This article contributes, therefore, to two understudied aspects of immigrants' political adaptation: immigrant participation in protest activities and the impact of their pre-migration experiences.

The Role of Social Networks in Immigrant Women's Political Incorporation. International Migration Review 43 (4): 727-763.
Elisabeth Gidengil and Dietlind Stolle (2009)

This article examines how immigrant women's social networks affect their propensity to vote and to participate in unconventional political activities, as well as their knowledge of politics and government services and programs. Our primary source of data is a telephone survey of women living in Canada's two largest metropolitan areas. Our findings show that contrary to the social capital literature, bonding ties do not exert strong negative effects on political incorporation, while bridging ties are not as helpful as hypothesized. What is important for immigrant women are the resources that are embedded in their social networks.

Information, Visibility and Elections: Why Electoral Outcomes Differ When Voters are Better Informed. European Journal of Political Research 48 (2): 256-280.
André Blais, Elisabeth Gidengil, Patrick Fournier and Neil Nevitte (2009)

This article assesses the aggregate effect of information shortfall on the outcome of the last six Canadian elections. Building on Bartels' analysis, the authors find an informa- tion effect in three of the six elections examined, and in each case the information gap benefits the Liberal Party. That finding raises the question: why does information matter in some contexts but not in others? It is argued in this article that the information gap is related to lack of visibility. When and where all political parties have some degree of visibility, the less informed vote like the better informed, but when and where a party is hardly visible, the less informed are less likely to support that party. The less informed appear to consider a smaller set of options when they decide how to vote.

What do Women Really Know? A Gendered Analysis of Varieties of Political Knowledge. Perspectives on Politics 8 (1): 93-109.
Dietlind Stolle and Elisabeth Gidengil (2010)

While studies typically find that women know less about politics than do men, feminist scholars have argues that these findings reflect gender-biased measures that underestimate women's political knowledge. This article evaluates the feminist critique by taking a more expansive view of what constitutes political knowledge. Using data from a large Canadian urn sample, we show that gender gaps close or even reverse when people are queried about more practical aspects of political knowledge, such as government benefits and services. Our results also demonstrate that this type of knowledge is more equally distributed than its conventional counterpart, though the women who are the most likely to need government services and benefits are often the least likely to know about them. Finally, we show that knowledge of government services and benefits has a significant effect on women's intended vote choice. This article thus shoos that more practical types of political knowledge might serve as meaningful additions to existing definitions and measures of political knowledge.

The Role of Social Networks in Immigrant Women's Political Incorporation. International Migration Review 43 (4): 727-763.
Elisabeth Gidengil and Dietlind Stolle (2009)

This article examines how immigrant women's social networks affect their propensity to vote and to participate in unconventional political activities, as well as their knowledge of politics and government services and programs. Our primary source of data is a telephone survey of women living in Canada's two largest metropolitan areas. Our findings show that contrary to the social capital literature, bonding ties do not exert strong negative effects on political incorporation, while bridging ties are not as helpful as hypothesized. What is important for immigrant women are the resources that are embedded in their social networks.

Election Campaigns as Information Campaigns: Who Learns What and Does It Matter? . (summary) Political Communication 25: 229-248.
Richard Nadeau, Neil Nevitte, Elisabeth Gidengil and André Blais (2008)

During election campaigns political parties compete to inform voters about their leaders, the issues, and where they stand on these issues. In that sense, election campaigns can be viewed as a particular kind of information campaign. Democratic theory supposes that participatory democracies are better served by an informed electorate than an uninformed one. But do all voters make equal information gains during campaigns? Why do some people make more information gains than others? And does the acquisition of campaign information have any impact on vote intentions? Combining insights from political science research, communications theory, and social psychology, we develop specific hypotheses about these campaign information dynamics. These hypotheses are tested with data from the 1997 Canadian Election Study, which includes a rolling cross-national campaign component, a post-election component, and a media content analysis. The results show that some people do make more information gains than others; campaigns produce a knowledge gap. Moreover, the intensity of media signals on different issues has an important impact on who receives what information, and information gains have a significant impact on vote intentions.

The Rational Public? A Canadian Test of the Page and Shapiro Argument. International Journal of Public Opinion Research 17 (2): 190-212.
Éric Bélanger and François Pétry (2005)

Over a decade ago, Page and Shapiro challenged the classical view of public opinion by arguing that Americans' collective policy preferences, instead of being volatile and meaningless, were rational" in the sense that they were reasonable and stable over time. We propose the first non-American full test of Page and Shapiro's argument. We analyze 60 years of trends in Canadian public opinion on policy issues (1941-2001). Our results reveal that Canadian public opinion appears as stable as American public opinion. However

Personality Traits, Political Attitudes, and the Propensity to Vote. European Journal of Political Research.
André Blais and Simon Labbé St-Vincent (2010)

This article examines the link between personality traits, political attitudes and the propensity to vote in elections, using an Internet panel survey conducted in two Canadian provinces at the time of the 2008 federal election and the subsequent provincial elections. It first establishes that the two most proximate attitudes that shape one's propensity to vote are political interest and sense of civic duty. The article then look at specific personality traits (altruism, shyness, efficacy and conflict avoidance) that could affect level of political interest, civic duty and the propensity to vote in elections. In the last part of the analysis, a model is proposed and tested, according to which the impact of personality traits is indirect, being mediated by interest and duty. The article shows that the data are consistent with such an interpretation.

Optimists and Sceptics: Why Do People Believe in the Value of their Single Vote? . Electoral Studies 30 (1): 77-82.
André Blais and Ludovic Rheault (2010)

We investigate the origins of voters' beliefs about the value of their single vote. We construe such beliefs as a function of psychological predispositions and exposure to information about the competitiveness of the electoral race. We test this theoretical model using data from the 2008 Canadian federal election and a new survey question tapping voters' beliefs about whether their vote can make a difference. Our results show that sense of efficacy has a strong effect, efficacious voters being more prone to optimism. Competitiveness of the race also matters, but only among attentive voters.

French Electoral Reform and the Abstention Rate. Parliamentary Affairs 64 (1): 45-60.
Christine Fauvelle-Aymar, Michael Lewis-Beck and Richard Nadeau (2011)

In France, more than other mature democracies, the election rules undergo reform. Our concern is how these reforms influence mass electoral behaviour, namely voter turnout. We gather an extended national data set on the abstention rate, across the republics of France, and subject it to an interrupted time-series analysis. Two sets of hypotheses are explored: structural and tactical. The structural findings-on constitutional shifts, suffrage extension, ballot rounds, election type-are largely null. However, the tactical hypotheses are strongly supported. Ruling parties are shown to alter the election rules, in order to enhance their presidential power at the ballot box. In particular, the reforms surrounding the elections of 1962, 1981, 1988 and 2002 each, systematically, increased abstention in legislative election contests. This reduced turnout can be seen as a reasonable response of voters to the èpresidentialisation' of these National Assembly elections, rendering them second order. To the extent that future legislative elections are decoupled from presidential ones, the expectation would be a rise in their voter turnout.

Socio-economic Status and Non-Voting: A Cross-National Comparative Analysis. In Hans-Dieter Klingemann, ed., The Comparative Study of Electoral Systems Volume 1, Oxford University Press.
Neil Nevitte, André Blais, Elisabeth Gidengil and Richard Nadeau (2009)

This study examines the relationship between socio-economic status (SES) and non-voting using data from the first module of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems project. SES influences non- voting in all countries included in the first module, regardless of economic, political or institutional characteristics. The strength and patterns of the relationship between SES and non-voting vary cross- nationally. The main finding is that four SES variables are consistently related to non-voting even after contextual factors, like economic conditions, electoral history (whether a new or consolidated democracies), electoral rules, and party systems are taken into account, low SES is still associated with non-voting.

What Affects Voter Turnout? . Annual Review of Political Science (9): 111-125.
André Blais (2006)

Why is turnout higher in some countries and/or in some elections than in others? Why does it increase or decrease over time? To address these questions, I start with the pioneer studies of Powell and Jackman and then review more recent research. This essay seeks to establish which propositions about the causes of variations in turnout are consistently supported by empirical evidence and which ones remain ambiguous. I point out some enigmas and gaps in the field and suggest directions for future research. Most of the research pertains to established democracies, but analyses of non-established democracies are also included here.

Did Bill C-24 Affect Voter Turnout? Evidence from the 2000 and 2004 Elections. Canadian Journal of Political Science 39 (4): 935-943.
Peter John Loewen and André Blais (2006)

By tying subsidies to vote totals, Bill C-24 substantially changed the way Canadian national parties are financed. This raises the possibility of increased voter turnout, as parties face greater incentives to maximize vote totals, and voters face greater incentives to turn out. We consider this possibility. We show that turnout was not differently affected by closeness in 2004 than in 2000; that candidates' efforts were not greater in 2004 in more marginal ridings; that there were no differences in the likelihood of abstaining or deserting a preferred third-place party in 2004 and 2000; and that at the individual level, the decision to turn out was not affected by strategic considerations in the expected direction. Accordingly, we find little support for the possibility that C-24 increased turnout.

The Causes and Consequences of the Cumul des Mandats. French Politics (4): 266-268.
André Blais (2006)

Electoral Systems and Turnout . (summary) Acta Politica 41: 180-196.
André Blais and Kees Aarts (2006)

Research dealing with contemporary western democracies has consistently shown that turnout is substantially higher under PR, under larger district magnitude, and under more proportional systems in general. That research has failed to explain, however, that how and why PR fosters turnout. Furthermore, the same pattern fails to be replicated in Latin America. Finally, studies that include a wide set of democracies find turnout to be higher under more proportional systems, but the reported impact is quite small. We conclude that the pattern observed in established democracies is not robust and that until we have developed a more compelling explanation for how and why PR fosters turnout, a sceptical position is justified.

Political Trust and the Vote in Multiparty Elections: The Canadian Case. European Journal of Political Research 44 (1): 121-146.
Éric Bélanger and Richard Nadeau (2005)

While the causes of declining political trust have been investigated extensively in the literature, much less empirical effort has been devoted to the study of its behavioural implications. This article focuses on the decline of trust in Canada during the period 1984 to 1993, and on its effect on Canadian voting behaviour. We build upon M.J. Hetherington's (èThe effect of political trust on the presidential vote, 1968-1996', American Political Science Review 93 (1999): 311-326) work to explore the impact of political trust on the vote and on abstention in a multiparty electoral context. Multinomial logit estimations are performed using individual-level survey data from three Canadian federal elections. While distrust is shown to significantly affect electoral participation, thus acting as an alienating factor, the results indicate that decreasing trust acts more as a motivation to support third-party alternatives. The study further demonstrates that, in a multiple party setting, èold-line' major parties electorally suffer from declining political trust, but some third parties benefit more from this phenomenon than others. Contrary to what was the case in the previous two elections, distrustful individuals in 1993 were more likely to vote for the Reform Party or the Bloc Québécois than support the New Democratic Party.

Does Low Turnout Matter? Evidence from the 2000 Canadian Federal Election. (summary) Electoral Studies 26: 589-597.
Daniel Rubenson, André Blais, Patrick Fournier, Elisabeth Gidengil, Neil Nevitte (2007)

We examine whether turnout has a partisan bias; specifically whether higher turnout would benefit parties and policies of the left. Using data from the 2000 Canadian Election Study, we analyze differences in opinion between voters and non-voters across a wide spectrum of policy areas in order to assess the extent of divergent views between voters and abstainers. Next, by simulating universal turnout we test the hypothesis that the outcome of the 2000 Canadian Federal Election would have been appreciably different if all citizens were to have voted. We find scant evidence for a partisan effect of turnout in Canada. Voters' opinions are, by and large, representative of the larger population and universal turnout would not have changed the election result.

The Role of Social Networks in Immigrant Women's Political Incorporation. International Migration Review 43 (4): 727-763.
Elisabeth Gidengil and Dietlind Stolle (2009)

This article examines how immigrant women's social networks affect their propensity to vote and to participate in unconventional political activities, as well as their knowledge of politics and government services and programs. Our primary source of data is a telephone survey of women living in Canada's two largest metropolitan areas. Our findings show that contrary to the social capital literature, bonding ties do not exert strong negative effects on political incorporation, while bridging ties are not as helpful as hypothesized. What is important for immigrant women are the resources that are embedded in their social networks.

Residential Segregation and the Electoral Participation of Immigrants in Australia . (summary) International Migration Review 43 (1): 142-167.
Antoine Bilodeau (2009)

This paper investigates whether immigrants in Australia residing in situations of residential segregation (federal constituencies with high concentrations of immigrants) participate more in electoral politics than other immigrants. The results indicate that immigrants participate more when living in federal constituencies with high concentrations of immigrants and also exhibit greater homogeneity in their partisan preferences. The analysis also indicates that the impact of residential segregation is primarily observed among immigrants from non-English-speaking countries. Immigrants from visible minority background, such as those from South East Asia as well as those from Southern and South Eastern Europe, tend to be more strongly affected by the ethnic composition of their constituencies than other immigrants such as those from the United Kingdom and Ireland.