An American Peculiarity: The Normalization of Non-Voting in America

Persistent URL of this record https://hdl.handle.net/1887/3158388

In Collections

This item can be found in the following collections:

History (research) (MA)

Cebalo, Anton (2021)

An American Peculiarity: The Normalization of Non-Voting in America

Research master thesis | History (research) (MA)

Since the turn of the 20th century, the United States has consistently seen lower voter turnout compared to other developed democracies. Initially, during the 1920s, this was viewed as a serious social problem and produced widespread panic. By the 1990s, however, comparable rates of non-voting generated a more muted and even accepting response. This thesis thus argues that non-voting underwent a process of socio-cultural normalization during the 20th century. This process is historicized by tracing four distinct shifts in attitudes toward non-voting which ended up normalizing this American peculiarity.

Author: Cebalo, Anton

Faculty: Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation: Politics, Culture and National Identities, 1789 to the Present

Supervisors: Dr. W.M. Schmidli, W.M.

ECTS Credits: 30

Language: en

Leiden University Student Repository

Documents

In Collections

An American Peculiarity: The Normalization of Non-Voting in America