This county-level study examines factors associated with the rate of voided presidential ballots in the 1996 elections. Evidence indicates that voided ballots are significantly more prevalent in counties with higher percentages of African Americans and Hispanics. The relationship between voided...

The question of why some people vote in American national elections and others do not has been the focus of a vast literature in social science. Numerous empirical regularities have been established, such that we now know "who votes" and who doesn't, in the sense that various demographic...

The logic of collective action (Olson 1965) suggests that public broadcasting may be underprovided, because non-contributors are not excluded from receiving the benefits. Why do so many individuals voluntarily contribute to public television, even though they can obtain the benefits of public...

Every four years, more than 2% of voters fail to cast a valid vote in the U.S. presidential contest. The 2000 election highlighted the fact that many intended votes are voided because of voter confusion associated with complicated ballot designs or voting equipment. Using survey data, this study...

Aid potentially can contribute to democratization in several ways: (1) through technical assistance focusing on electoral processes, the strengthening of legislatures and judiciaries as checks on executive power, and the promotion of civil society organizations, including a free press; (2)...

This chapter surveys the major contributions to the rapidly growing empirical literature on social capital and economic performance, focusing primarily on cross-country approaches. It first addresses characteristics of governments that fall under broad definitions of the term social capital. It...

This paper compares more direct measures of the institutional environment with both the instability proxies used by Barro (1991) and the Gastil indices, by comparing their effects both on growth and private investment. The results provide substantial support for the position that the...

Assuming that J. S. Mill and others are correct in their belief that trust matters for the economic performance of nations, the determinants of trust become important. Section 2 discusses the sources of trust and briefly summarizes empirical evidence. Section 3 builds on Fukuyama’s concept of...

Various possible explanations for the turnout increase of nearly 6 percentage points in the 1992 U.S. presidential election as compared to the 1988 election are examined, using both survey and state-level data. The turnout impact of Perot's candidacy, surprisingly, is found to be negligible....

Many researchers blame voter registration requirements for inequalities in turnout rates across various groups in American society. The number of states with election-day registration (EDR) of voters doubled between the 1990 and 1994 elections, providing a unique opportunity to examine its...