The Context of Voting: Does Neighborhood Ethnic Diversity Affect Turnout?

TY - JOUR

T1 - The Context of Voting: Does Neighborhood Ethnic Diversity Affect Turnout?

AU - Bhatti, Yosef

AU - Danckert, Bolette

AU - Hansen, Kasper Møller

PY - 2017

Y1 - 2017

N2 - With continuing immigration to Western countries, an important question concerns how these demographic changes impact natives’ propensity to vote.In particular, the literature debates whether exposure to ethnic others in local contexts generates conflict that mobilizes individuals to vote (mobilization theory), diminishes social cohesion that in turn makes voters likely to withdraw from voting (marginalization theory), or does not impact turnout at all. This study is one of the first to investigate the question using individual-level longitudinal data, which adds substantially to the causal leverage of the analysis. In particular, we use a panel dataset with validated turnout data for 1.9 million Danish voters combined with detailed data regarding the ethnic composition of individuals’ proximate residential neighborhood. The results suggest that increasing shares of immigrants does not affect natives’ propensity to vote to any substantive extent, irrespective of how the size of the neighborhood is specified. This finding cannot be ascribed to lack of statistical power. Hereby, the study provides an important contribution to the existing knowledgeregarding the democratic consequences of continuing immigration andincreasing ethnic diversity.

AB - With continuing immigration to Western countries, an important question concerns how these demographic changes impact natives’ propensity to vote.In particular, the literature debates whether exposure to ethnic others in local contexts generates conflict that mobilizes individuals to vote (mobilization theory), diminishes social cohesion that in turn makes voters likely to withdraw from voting (marginalization theory), or does not impact turnout at all. This study is one of the first to investigate the question using individual-level longitudinal data, which adds substantially to the causal leverage of the analysis. In particular, we use a panel dataset with validated turnout data for 1.9 million Danish voters combined with detailed data regarding the ethnic composition of individuals’ proximate residential neighborhood. The results suggest that increasing shares of immigrants does not affect natives’ propensity to vote to any substantive extent, irrespective of how the size of the neighborhood is specified. This finding cannot be ascribed to lack of statistical power. Hereby, the study provides an important contribution to the existing knowledgeregarding the democratic consequences of continuing immigration andincreasing ethnic diversity.

U2 - 10.1093/sf/sow093

DO - 10.1093/sf/sow093

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0037-7732

VL - 95

SP - 1127

JO - Social Forces

JF - Social Forces

IS - 3

ER -