Our faculty regularly produce research that help us understand and contextualize voting patterns and habits. Jake Haselswerdt, Assoicate Professor in the Truman School, along with his co-authors, recently published some new research into how a personal crisis impacts voter turnout.
Economic risk and instability are urgent and central facts in the lives of increasing numbers of Americans. Though experienced as “personal,” the causes of life disruptions like unemployment, eviction, and loss of health insurance are also deeply political. In this paper, we build on existing “single crisis” studies to offer a comprehensive theoretical and empirical picture of how life disruptions shape political behavior.
Personal crises reduce voter turnout, but may prompt other political action.