Social Networks and Correct Voting

Work on the nexus between deliberation and democratic practice has considered the normative consequences of socially driven behavior. However, a common criticism of interpersonal networks is that most people have insular social circles and that when they do not they are unlikely to engage in politic...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of politics 2012-07, Vol.74 (3), p.751-764
Main Authors: Sokhey, Anand Edward, McClurg, Scott D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ambivalence
Candidates
Citizens
Communication
Criticism
Cues
Datasets
Decision making
Deliberation
Democracy
Elections
Interest groups
Interpersonal relations
Normativity
Political candidates
Political elections
Political networks
Political partisanship
Politics
Preferences
Social change
Social Environment
Social networking
Social Networks
U.S.A
United States
United States of America
Voting
Voting behavior
Voting behaviour
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Summary:Work on the nexus between deliberation and democratic practice has considered the normative consequences of socially driven behavior. However, a common criticism of interpersonal networks is that most people have insular social circles and that when they do not they are unlikely to engage in politics. We show that such pessimistic assessments are unwarranted, though for unexpected reasons. Using data from the 1992 Cross-National Election Project and the 2000 ANES, we examine the conditions under which social networks promote interest-based voting in the United States. We find that networks facilitate connections between individuals’ vote decisions and their underlying preferences when they provide unambiguous signals regarding candidates—because many Americans reside in supportive social environments, networks often help citizens make “correct” voting decisions (Lau and Redlawsk 1997 ). Thus, social networks appear to help shoulder the demands of democratic theory, but not by helping people learn about politics in any traditional sense.
ISSN:0022-3816
1468-2508
DOI:10.1017/S0022381612000461