Voting Behavior
In addition to sociologists, scholars from many different fields, including history, political science, psychology, and geography, have studied elections and voting behavior. In current American sociology, however, these topics are largely neglected. Major advances have been made in related disciplines, yet as of one of the pioneers, the sociologist Rice (1928, p. p.vii) stated: "The phenomena of politics are functions of group life. The study of group life per se is a task of sociology." In general terms, despite variations in emphasis between different approaches, the sociological study of voting behavior is concerned with the way individuals obtain, select, and process information related to the political arena; the various forces that shape this process; the relevance individuals attribute to the political sphere; and how they decide to participate in or refrain from specific political actions. Elections provide a convenient focus, a point where the often elusive and latent processing of political information manifests behavioral correlates such as voting or abstaining and supporting one candidate or the other. In contrast, forecasting election returns is not a primary goal of the sociological study of voting behavior, although the general public, parties, and politicians are interested mostly in this aspect. Much applied research served these immediate needs and interests in the past and continues to do so.
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