Afternoon Seminars@CMIST - Yosef Bhatti & Kasper M. Hansen - The social act of voting: Intriguing patterns, causal evidence and causal mechanisms
| Dates: | 7 October 2014 |
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| Times: | 16:00 - 17:15 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, Current University students |
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| Speaker: | Kasper M Hansen, Yosef Bhatti |
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In this Afternoon Seminars@CMIST event, Yosef Bhatti & Kasper M. Hansen from the University of Copenhagen will deliver a talk entitled 'The social act of voting: Intriguing patterns, causal evidence and causal mechanisms'.
Abstract:
A large amount of research suggests that citizens' tendency to vote is correlated with the voting behavior of their social environment. Newer research indicate that this relationship may be causal and not simply due to sorting into social relationships. In this research we seek to contribute to the discussion by three types of studies. First, we discuss observational evidence suggesting that young individuals' propensity to vote depend on whether they share a household with their parents. This may explain why those who just gained eligibility vote in higher numbers than those in the early 20ies. Second, we present experimental evidence from a large scale SMS intervention. We find substantial spill-over within the household. We also find that young adults affect their parents but only if they share a household. Finally, we utilize a unique dataset with the exact timing of voting to investigate a possible mechanism suggested by Fieldhouse and others: People sharing households go to the polls together (the companion effect). We show that more than 60% of all dyads of voters sharing a household vote within 1 minute of each other, suggesting that the companion effect could be an important causal mechanism for household effects of voting.
No need to register; all welcome!
Speakers
Kasper M Hansen
Role: Professor
Organisation: Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen
Yosef Bhatti
Role: Part-time lecturer, Assistant professor
Organisation: Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
2.07
Humanities Bridgeford Street
Manchester
