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Emanating Political Participation: Untangling the Spatial Structure Behind Participation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2008

WENDY K TAM CHO
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science and National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
THOMAS J RUDOLPH
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Abstract

This is an analysis of the spatial structure of political participation in the United States using spatial econometric techniques and newly available geo-coded data. The results provide strong evidence that political participation is geographically clustered, and that this clustering cannot be explained entirely by social network involvement, individual-level characteristics, such as race, income, education, cognitive forms of political engagement, or by aggregate-level factors such as racial diversity, income inequality, mobilization or mean education level. The analysis suggests that the spatial structure of participation is consistent with a diffusion process that occurs independently from citizens' involvement in social networks.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
2008 Cambridge University Press

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