The Gender Gap in Latin America: Contextual and Individual Influences
                    on Gender and Political Participation

Desposato, Scott; Norrander, Barbara

doi:10.1017/s0007123408000458

Cited by 139 publications

(138 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…The canonical view says that political participation differs by gender (Chaney 1979, Desposato andNorrander 2009), increases as individuals age (Nie et al 1974, Wass 2007, and get married (Straits 1990, Kern 2010, Stoker and Jennings 1995. My findings in this chapter confirm the wellknown results regarding voters' political participation mentioned.…”

Section: Central Findingssupporting

confidence: 77%

“…Voter turnout studies have extensively documented gender gaps. Historically, women had been deliberately excluded from power and political participation in democracies, and differentials in participation often persisted even with the removal of formal barriers to voting and holding office (Desposato and Norrander 2009). Early studies of voting behavior in western democracies established that gender was one of the standard demographic and social characteristics used to predict levels of electoral turnout.…”

Section: Hypothesis 22mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Entity/Event-Level Sentiment Detection and Inference

Deng

2015

Proceedings of the 2015 Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Student Rese

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Turnout has decreased in 23 out of 36 established democracies since 1945. Among all worldwide cases Costa Rica is a good laboratory for studying turnout oscillations. During three decades between 1958 and 1994, political participation average rates remained high in a comparative perspective. Following that trend, one would easily predict that individuals socialized during that period of time must replicate automatically their parents' and grandparents' levels of high political activism. However, turnout patterns in the country since 1998 do not fit very well in that story.Older voters are no longer voting at the rates they usually did and the younger are entering into politics during times of lower participation. The combination of these two factors can have big deleterious and long-lasting effects on turnout trends.Estimating the causal relationship between consecutive voting decisions has proven to be intrinsically difficult for social scientists. Drawing on an exceptionally rich and unique turnout dataset and a mixed-methods approach that includes longitudinal multivariate analysis, face-toface interviews and geospatial statistics this contribution seeks to explain why in Costa Rica, currently the oldest and most stable democracy in Latin America, turnout has declined? And more importantly: what factors drive these changes? v Individual characteristics, although still relevant in static theories regarding turnout determinants, have proved to be insufficient for understanding why individuals' turnout behavior varies over time. Instead, I theorize that the partisan (group) identity that makes people turn out because they are loyal to the party in a context of conflict produces stronger motivation but it is activated selectively, and it only works in a context of "threat" or polarized deliberation.Nevertheless, these incentives may change over time, they may increase or decrease under certain circumstances impacting turnout. Essentially, the more polarized the electoral competition, the easier it will be for citizens to cast their vote.A polarized deliberation, the key factor in my causal story, creates the conditions for the activation of strong partisan identities that stimulate voters' mobilization to the polls. Therefore, During the course of my fieldwork in Costa Rica, I accumulated many debts. I especially thank all the persons I contacted for the interviews and accepted to share their experiences with me. These interviews were crucial for my research project. Without the knowledge I compiled in these conversations I would not be able to develop the theoretical argument of chapter 6.In Pitt, I was also fortunate to share time with several great friends. (Carlin et.al. 2015).The worst case scenario would be one in which this pattern could extend individuals' apathy toward politics during lifetime, causing low turnout to freeze for decades. Therefore, if we want to understand the implications of turnout decline in established democracies, we first need to comprehend the conditions under which these chang...

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Section: Central Findingssupporting

confidence: 77%

Section: Hypothesis 22mentioning

confidence: 99%

Entity/Event-Level Sentiment Detection and Inference

Deng

2015

Proceedings of the 2015 Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Student Rese

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“…Women appear to vote more than men in Latin American elections. 11 Desposato and Norrander (2009) point out that the "gender gap" in political participation is attenuated when there is a high level of women participation in public office-which is an *p < .1, two-tailed. **p < .05, two-tailed.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…10 The impact of gender on voter turnout is also worth noting. The few studies that analyze women's political involvement in Latin America conclude that there is a "gender gap" in political participation and that women are less likely to be politically engaged in the region (Desposato & Norrander, 2009). Our results, however, show the opposite effect.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who Votes in Latin America? A Test of Three Theoretical Perspectives

Carreras

Castañeda-Angarita

2013

Comparative Political Studies

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Previous studies of electoral participation in Latin America have focused on the political and institutional factors that influence country differences in the aggregate level of turnout. This article provides a theoretical and empirical examination of the individual-level factors that have an impact on citizens' propensity to vote. We test three theoretical perspectives that have been used to explain electoral participation in industrialized democracies (voters' resources, voters' motivations, and mobilization networks). Using a series of logistic and hierarchical models, we demonstrate that the demographic characteristics of voters (age and education) and citizens' insertion in mobilizing networks (civic organizations and the working place) are strong predictors of electoral participation in Latin America. Our analysis also confirms the importance of contextual and institutional variables to explain turnout in the region.

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“…Gender has also been linked to voter turnout: it has been argued that men have more resources and, thus, are more likely to turnout than women. However, recent comparative research suggests that the gender gap has gradually disappeared and that it is usually women who turnout at higher rates than men (Lehoucq and Wall 2004;Desposato and Norrander 2009). …”

Section: Socio-demographic Explanationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Explains Voter Turnout in Latin America?: A Test of the Effect of Citizens' Attitudes Towards the Electoral Process

Haime

2017

Rev. cienc. polít. (Santiago)

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Research on electoral participation at the individual level in Latin America remains scarce. This article extends our knowledge about the individual-level factors that impact citizens' propensity to vote in the region. Specifically, I assess the link between citizens' trust in the electoral process and voter turnout using recent survey data from 19 Latin American countries between 2004 and 2014. Using logistic models I show that trust in the fairness of elections has a significant and positive effect on voter turnout across the region, and that this effect is mediated by the existence of compulsory voting laws.

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The Gender Gap in Latin America: Contextual and Individual Influences on Gender and Political Participation

Cited by 139 publications

References 6 publications

Entity/Event-Level Sentiment Detection and Inference

Entity/Event-Level Sentiment Detection and Inference

Who Votes in Latin America? A Test of Three Theoretical Perspectives

What Explains Voter Turnout in Latin America?: A Test of the Effect of Citizens' Attitudes Towards the Electoral Process

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