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...

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...

This study views voter participation as a collective action problem overcome chiefly by means of "solidary" and "purposive" selective incentives. It is argued that these incentives are primarily in the form of civic or societal norms, rather than special interest norms associated with partisan...

This chapter explains the incentives facing donors that lead them to fragment their foreign aid effortis over a large number of recipients, sectros, and projects. It summarizes cross-country evidence suggesting that fragmentation may reduce quality of the public administration in aid recipients,...

The National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993 required all states to establish "motor voter," mail-in and agency registration procedures prior to the 1996 Presidential election. Using state-level data for the 1976-94 period on party registration, we analyze the party registration impacts of...

This article presents a statistical study of the determinants of democracy in the postwar period. Important variables are found to be former status as a British colony, island status, the share of the population professing Islam, the percentage of European descent, penteration of the English...

This paper describes the gradual accumulation of indicators and evidence of the links between governance and growth, focusing on broad cross-country analyses. While each governance indicator developed thus far is in some way imperfect, the faults of some measures are entirely independent from...