Author's Keywords: Participation, Information, Democracy	Convention All Academic Convention makes running your annual conference simple and cost effective. It is your online solution for abstract management, peer review, and scheduling for your annual meeting or convention. Submission - Custom fields, multiple submission types, tracks, audio visual, multiple upload formats, automatic conversion to pdf. Review - Peer Review, Bulk reviewer assignment, bulk emails, ranking, z-score statistics, and multiple worksheets! Reports - Many standard and custom reports generated while you wait. Print programs with participant indexes, event grids, and more! Scheduling - Flexible and convenient grid scheduling within rooms and buildings. Conflict checking and advanced filtering. Communication - Bulk email tools to help your administrators send reminders and responses. Use form letters, a message center, and much more! Management - Search tools, duplicate people management, editing tools, submission transfers, many tools to manage a variety of conference management headaches! Click here for more information.
Association: Name: American Political Science Association URL: http://www.apsanet.org
Citation: URL: http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p62469_index.html Direct Link: HTML Code:

Lutz, Georg. "Participation, Information and Democracy: When Do Low Turnout and Low Information Make a Difference - and Why?" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia Marriott Hotel, Philadelphia, PA, Aug 27, 2003 <Not Available>. 2009-05-26 <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p62469_index.html>

Lutz, G. , 2003-08-27 "Participation, Information and Democracy: When Do Low Turnout and Low Information Make a Difference - and Why?" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia Marriott Hotel, Philadelphia, PA Online <.PDF>. 2009-05-26 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p62469_index.html

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript Review Method: Peer Reviewed Abstract: Democracy is far from ideal in many countries these days: turnout is declining and/or is low, and voters are often poorly informed. However, I argue in this paper that low turnout and low levels of information matter only if two conditions are fulfilled: (1) participation and information has to be socially discriminatory for some social groups and (2) the outcome of a vote is biased due to low turnout and low information of citizens in a way that outcomes would have been different if more citizens had participated and were better informed. The findings here confirm the generally known social factors that explain differences in turnout and differences in the level of information of voters to a great extent in the popular votes in Switzerland: better educated and more well to do people participate more and are better informed than poorer, less educated ones. In many of the analysed votes the outcome would have been different if non voters had participated and the badly informed would have become better informed however the lack of information seems to matter more than the level of participation. The government and the left wing parties would often have done better if citizens were better informed but the right wing parties would have done better if more citizens had voted. Several institutional variables can explain the bias: the issues in which people are relatively uninterested and find them difficult to understand, when turnout and information levels are low the risk of a turnout or information bias increases as well.

Move to the Center or Mobilize the Base? Effects of Political Competition, Voter Turnout, and Partisan Loyalties on the Ideological Convergence of Vote-Maximizing Candidates in Two-Party Competition

Bridging the Gap: The Effects of the Internet versus Television on Political Participation and Voter Turnout