Elected Officials, Empowered Voters: The Impact of Descriptive Representation on Voter Turnout
Persistent URL
Author(s)
Hayes, Matthew
Wong, Cara
Bloeser, Andrew J.
Fredrickson, Mark
LaForge, Chera
Date Issued
September 23, 2022
Abstract
How does descriptive representation affect the voter turnout of African Americans? Though theories state that electing officials who belong to a minority group should lead to greater participation among that group's members via empowerment, the empirical evidence has been mixed. With three decades of voter turnout data, Census data, and data on Black elected officials in South Carolina, we address a number of questions about descriptive representation. Using the number of officials, their level of office, and when they were elected, we investigate how Black representatives affect turnout for Black voters. We find evidence of an empowering effect for African Americans, but find it depends on numbers and jurisdiction, with local representation associated with greater boosts to turnout than federal representation. These results help us reconcile the literature on empowerment by demonstrating the nuanced effects of descriptive representation across level and magnitude of representation.
Journal
Political Behavior
Department
Political Science
Citation
Hayes, M., Wong, C., Bloeser, A. et al. Elected Officials, Empowered Voters: The Impact of Descriptive Representation on Voter Turnout. Polit Behav (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-022-09823-0
Publisher
Springer/Plenum Publishers
Version of Article
Published article
Embargo
This version of the article has been accepted for publication, after peer review (when applicable) and is subject to Springer Nature’s AM terms of use, but is not the Version of Record and does not reflect post-acceptance improvements, or any corrections. The Version of Record is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-022-09823-0
DOI
10.1007/s11109-022-09823-0
ISSN
0190-9320
1573-6687
Rights
Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
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