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Civic Talk and Civic Participation

It seems at least plausible that those explicitly named by respondents as people with whom they discuss politics may be a biased selection of those with whom politics is actually discussed.

—Michael Laver (2005, 934)

n this chapter I lay down the foundation of my argument by examining Ithe existing scholarship on civic talk and civic participation. I then show how our understanding of the relationship between these two phenomena can be made clearer with new evidence. In the chapters that follow, I use a number of different sources of data to show how and why civic talk

affects how we participate in civil society.

What Is Civic Talk?

Civic talk is the informal discussion of politics and current events that occurs within a social network of peers: the friends, colleagues, family members, and other individuals who are present in our social environment. A variety of examples of this type of behavior exist, including talking about the news of the day over a family dinner, discussing the economy during a coffee break at work, chatting among patrons at a bar about the current election, and other such informal discussions. Typically, these types of interactions are not purposively sought. Instead, civic talk is usually an unintended byproduct of people going about their normal daily routine (Downs 1957; Klofstad et al. 2009; Walsh 2004). For example, a husband and wife might sit down to dinner together and end up discussing

Chapter 2

the issues that were covered in the news that day, or a group of friends socializing at a party might end up talking about the current election, or co-workers might end up discussing the state of the local school system during a lunch break.

Because civic talk is “accidental,” it is important to underscore that it is distinct from another form of political discussion that is examined in the political science literature: deliberation. In contrast to the informal nature of civic talk, deliberation is a more formal process where citizens are brought together for the expressed purpose of formulating government policy (Barabas 2004; Conover et al. 2002; Delli Carpini et al. 2004; Mendelberg 2002; Page and Shapiro 1992). Civic talk is not as purposive or formal as deliberation.

If civic talk is a natural part of daily life, how often do we engage in it? Politics and current events may not be at the top of everyone’s list of favorite discussion topics, but most of us do engage in civic talk at least from time to time. For example, respondents to the 2008–2009 American National Election Studies Panel Study were asked, “During a typical week, how many days do you talk about politics with family or friends?” About 91 percent of respondents said they engaged in such discussions at least once a week. On average, respondents reported that they engaged in civic talk about three days per week.1

If most people do engage in civic talk, at least sometimes, then who do they talk to? Because civic talk is a byproduct of going about our normal everyday lives, people do not typically seek out specific individuals with whom to talk about politics and current events. Instead, we tend to talk about these matters with the same set of people with whom we discuss other topics (Huckfeldt and Sprague 1995; Klofstad et al. 2009; McClurg 2006; Mutz 2002; Walsh 2004). Table 2.1 offers an illustration of the overlap between political and non-political discussion networks. These data come from the 1996 Indianapolis–St. Louis Study conducted by Huckfeldt and Sprague (2000). That study is uniquely tailored to answering the question of who we discuss politics and current events with because it used two different methods to collect information on civic talk. Half of the respondents in this study were randomly selected to provide information on the individuals with whom they discussed “important matters” in their life. The other half of the respondents were asked to

1These figures are taken from wave 9 of the study, collected in September 2009. Responses to this question collected in waves 10 (October 2009) and 11 (November 2009) yield comparable results.

Civic Talk and Civic Participation

TABLE 2.1 Composition of political and core discussion networks

			Subset of
			“important matters”
	Political	“Important matters”	network that
	discussion network	discussion network	discusses politics

Spouses (%)	13	16	17
Other family members (%)	25	30	30
Coworkers (%)	23	15	15
“Close” friends (%)	66	73	74

Sources: 1996 Indianapolis–St. Louis Study (Huckfeldt and Sprague 2000). This table is a partial reproduction of Table 2 in Klofstad et al. (2009).

provide information on the individuals with whom they specifically “discuss politics.”2

The data presented in Table 2.1 show that political discussion networks consist of more or less the same people with whom we discuss other matters. The data in the first two columns of the table suggest that “important matters” discussion networks are, perhaps, a bit more socially intimate. Political discussants are less likely to be spouses (t = −2.45, p =

.01) or family members (t = −3.20, p < .01), and more likely to be coworkers (t = 6.63, p < .01) when compared with “important matters” discussants. And while members of the political discussion network are as likely as “important matters” discussion partners to be considered “friends,” they are less likely to be considered “close friends” (t = −4.36, p < .01). However, while statistically significant, most of these differences are not substantively large. Moreover, comparison of the second and third columns of Table 2.1 shows that the individuals we choose to discuss politics with in our core “important matters” social networks look like the rest of the individuals in that network. Otherwise stated, in going about our daily lives we tend to engage in civic talk with the same people with whom we discuss other topics.

What Is Civic Participation?

The dependent variable of interest in this book is civic participation. “Civic participation” is a term that is used frequently in academic writings and the popular press these days. This is especially the case because many

2For a detailed discussion of these two methods of soliciting data on civic talk, see Klofstad et al. 2009.

Chapter 2

The State

Civil Society

Private Life

Political Participation

(e.g., voting, contacting elected officials, etc. …)

Non-Political Participation

(e.g., participating in voluntary civic organizations)

FIGURE 2.1 What is civic participation?

observers feel that we are in an era of civic disengagement in the United States (see, e.g., Putnam 2000). However, while “civic participation” has become a common term in everyday language, it is important to clarify what this phenomenon is and why it is important for our understanding of how democracy works.

Simply stated, civic participation is activity that draws individuals out of their private lives and into civil society. The diagram in Figure 2.1 presents this definition graphically. The left-hand side of the figure represents a simple society, showing government at the top, and each individual’s private life—or the “private sphere”—at the bottom. In between the state and private life we find civil society, or the “public sphere.” Civil society is the space where citizens are able to step out of their private lives and associate with one another. This space is both literal, as in the local town square where citizens congregate, and figurative, as in the rights to assemble and speak freely while you are in the town square.

The upward-facing arrow in Figure 2.1 illustrates the ways in which civil society upholds popular sovereignty. The arrow symbolizes the ability of citizens to articulate their views to the government by voting, engaging in protests, contacting their legislators, and other such activities. The upward-pointing arrow also symbolizes the fact that participation in public life gives citizens the means to push back against the government to prevent tyranny. In other words, civil society serves as both a bridge and a barrier between the state and the private sphere (Foley and Edwards 1996; Gellner 1995; Hall 1995).3

3It is worth noting that civil society is a necessary, although not sufficient, condition for democracy. For example, civil society was extremely vibrant in the German Weimar Republic. However, because the state was unresponsive to the people during this time period, the

Civic Talk and Civic Participation

In addition to protecting popular sovereignty, civic participation is important because it facilitates democratic governance, symbolized by the downward-pointing arrow in Figure 2.1 (Mayhew 1974; Putnam 1993, 2000). For example, Putnam (1993) shows that, despite having similar institutional structures, regional governments in the north of Italy provide better services to their citizens than do those in the south. Even after accounting for a host of alternative explanations, Putnam finds that this variation in governmental performance can be explained by the fact that northern Italians are more active in civil society than are their neighbors to the south (what he calls the strength of the “civic community” or “social capital”). In a more recent study, Putnam (2000) also makes the same claim about the United States. Civil society facilitates democratic governance because civically active citizens demand, and thus tend to get, better policies from the state. Moreover, organizations within civil society can aid in the development and implementation of policy solutions—for example, a soup kitchen can help the state fight hunger and homelessness, an after-school program can help the government combat juvenile delinquency, and the like.

Many different types of behavior fit under this broad definition of civic participation as participation in civil society. The right-hand side of Figure 2.1 splits this large set of activities into two categories: political and nonpolitical civic participation. Under this rubric, civic activities are distinguished based on whether the activity in question directly influences the democratic governing process (Putnam 2000; Tocqueville 2000; Verba et al. 1995; Zukin et al. 2006).

Political civic participation is activity that is aimed at directly influencing the government (see, e.g., Brady 1999; Putnam 2000; Verba et al. 1995). Examples of political civic activities include voting, participating in parties and interest groups, contacting elected officials about important issues, marching or protesting, and working on political campaigns. On the other side of the civic participation coin, we find non-political civic activities. These are activities that pull individuals out of their private lives and into the public sphere but that have no intentional influence on the processes of democratic governance. In practice, non-political civic activity is conceived of and measured as participation in voluntary membership organizations (Putnam 2000; Skocpol 2003; Tocqueville 2000; Verba et al. 1995). Examples include professional associations, philanthropic

door was left open for the Nazis to gain control of the country (Berman 1997). Moreover, the preferences of individuals that choose to participate in civil society are not always representative of those of the wider public (see, e.g., Putnam 2000; Verba et al. 1995).

Chapter 2

organizations, civic leadership groups such as the Elks and the Knights of Columbus, education organizations such as Parent–Teacher Organizations and Parent–Teacher Associations, religious groups, and the like.

In thinking about the distinction between political and non-political civic activities it is important to note that non-political civic activities could have unintended consequences on the governing process. For example, by volunteering in a soup kitchen an individual could have an effect on how the government addresses issues such as homelessness and unemployment. Or by attending a meeting of a religious organization, an individual could be exposed to requests to support a political candidate or party. These examples highlight the fact that the dividing line between political and non-political civic activities is not perfectly definitive. This is especially the case in the United States, where, compared with other industrialized democracies, government is more limited and civil society is more vibrant (Tocqueville 2000; Verba et al. 1995). This said, some method of classifying and distinguishing between the vast numbers of civic acts is needed, and the political–non-political taxonomy serves this purpose. Moreover, as subsequent chapters will show, civic talk can have different effects on how active individuals choose to be in political and non-political civic activities.

A Tautology?

Based on these definitions of “civic talk” and “civic participation,” a question some will have is whether treating civic talk and civic participation as distinct variables is tautological. More specifically, one might argue that informal discussion among peers about politics and current events is itself an act of civic participation. However, while civic talk and civic participation are closely related—this is the central theme of this book—they are distinct concepts.

With reference to Figure 2.1, civic talk is defined and measured as informal discussions that occur in the private sphere. In contrast, civic participation is activity that occurs in the public sphere. The existing body of political science scholarship supports this distinction. For example, through an extensive survey of existing scholarship, Brady (1999, 737; emphasis in the original) concludes that political participation “requires action by ordinary citizens directed towards influencing some political outcomes.” Thus, since “political discussion is not an activity aimed—directly or indirectly—at influencing the government” (Verba et al. 1995, 362), civic talk is not in itself an act of civic participation.

Civic Talk and Civic Participation

Social-Level Antecedents of Civic Participation

Now that the independent and dependent variables of interest in this study have been defined, we need to ask what we already know about their relationship to each other. Admittedly, this is not a new research question. Observers as far back as Alexis de Tocqueville, in his seminal study Democracy in America that was conducted in the 1830s, have noted that there is a strong relationship between how individual citizens interact with one another and how well democracy functions.4

In this same spirit, a number of different lines of contemporary social science research have addressed the effect that social-level factors have on various attitudes and behaviors. For example, works in sociology and social psychology show that individuals emulate the attitudinal and behavioral norms of their social network (Festinger et al. 1950; Latané and Wolf 1981; Michener and DeLamater 1999). Economists and sociologists have shown that one’s college roommate can influence a variety of behaviors, such as scholastic achievement (Sacerdote 2001) and binge drinking (Duncan et al. 2005). Research on households shows that people living under the same roof can influence one another to vote (Nickerson 2008). As discussed earlier, the literature on public deliberation shows that individuals become more informed about politics through the process of formulating policy options with other citizens (Barabas 2004; Delli Carpini et al. 2004; Page and Shapiro 1992; Mendelberg 2002). Works on social capital and cooperation illustrate that interacting with fellow citizens causes individuals to have a greater sense of attachment to community, which leads to more frequent participation in civic activities (Dawes et al. 1990; Putnam 2000; Sally 1995). Research on political communication, opinion formation, the mass media, and political socialization shows that the individuals around us influence how we learn about politics because civically engaged individuals provide the rest of us with information about politics (Alwin et al. 1991; Barker 1998; Dawson et al. 1977; Downs 1957; Lazarsfeld et al. 1968; Newcomb 1943; Newcomb et al. 1967; Silbiger 1977; Stimson 1990; Zaller 1992).5

4Or, as Tocqueville (2000, 492) stated it, “Among the laws that rule human societies there is one that seems more precise and clearer than all the others. In order that men remain civilized or become so, the art of associating must be fully developed and perfected among them.”

5Of special relevance in this set of citations is Theodore Newcomb’s “Bennington Studies” (Alwin et al. 1991; Newcomb 1943; Newcomb et al. 1967). Like Newcomb, I assess the socializing effect that college life has on young adults.

Chapter 2

With regard to research specifically on civic talk, a number of works have examined the relationship between political discussion and civic participation (Campbell and Wolbrecht 2006; Huckfeldt and Sprague 1991, 1995; Huckfeldt et al. 1995; Kenny 1992, 1994; Lake and Huckfeldt 1998; McClurg 2003, 2004; Mutz 2002). These studies suggest that civic talk has an influence on how individuals view and participate in politics. For example, using a national survey of the United States, Lake and Huckfeldt (1998) show that the amount of political discussion occurring in an individual’s social network correlates with his or her level of political participation, even after controlling for a host of alternative explanations. Beyond showing a positive relationship between civic talk and civic participation, more recent works on social networks have attempted to identify the mechanisms that allow individuals to translate discussion into action. For example, in an analysis of Huckfeldt and Sprague’s (1995) data set from South Bend, Indiana, McClurg (2003) shows that peers are an important source of information on politics and current events (also see Downs 1957). Information motivates participation because it increases civic competence (the ability to participate) and civic engagement (having an interest in participating in the first place).

Difficulties Producing Evidence of Causation

Based on the large amount of research that has already been conducted on sociological antecedents of civic participation, it is fair to ask why additional study of this phenomenon is needed. While there is a growing body of literature on civic talk and other related sociological phenomena, the vast majority of political scientists have discounted this line of research. Scholars have expressed serious skepticism about the role of civic talk in encouraging civic participation because conclusive evidence of a causal relationship between these two variables has not been found. Causation has not been shown because it is difficult to determine whether the people in our social environment influence us or whether our own patterns of behavior influence how we choose and act with the people around us (Klofstad 2007; Laver 2005; Nickerson 2008).6

An example helps illustrate why it is difficult to show a causal relationship between civic talk and civic participation. Existing works show a

6In reviewing an edited volume dedicated to the study of social networks, one critic even went as far as to say that “few of us really know what to do about implementing rigorous models of complex political interactions with endogenous preferences” (Laver 2005, 934).

Civic Talk and Civic Participation

strong correlation between how much a person talks with his or her peers about politics and how active that person is in civic activities (Campbell and Wolbrecht 2006; Huckfeldt and Sprague 1991, 1995; Huckfeldt et al. 1995; Kenny 1992, 1994; Lake and Huckfeldt 1998; McClurg 2003, 2004; Mutz 2002). However, we cannot conclude that a person’s social context is causing him or her to be more civically active with this evidence. One reason is reciprocal causation; an equally plausible explanation for the relationship between talk and participation is that being civically active causes an individual to talk about politics with his or her peers. Another problem is selection bias. Individuals who are more active in civic activities might consciously choose to associate with people who are more interested in talking about politics. Finally, we also need to consider the possibility of endogeneity bias (or, alternatively worded, omitted variable bias). Some factor that we have not been able to be account for could be causing people to both talk about politics and participate in civic activities.

Because of these serious analytical biases, the voluminous political science literature on civic participation has been dominated by theories that focus on individual-level explanations of civic participation. For example, of the thirty-one articles published on civic participation in the American Political Science Review between 2000 and 2009, only four studies directly examined the influence of sociological antecedents.7 Individual-level explanations of civic participation carry more weight in the field of political science because individual-level determinants of behavior are easier to study than social-level factors. Individual-level data are readily available from social surveys such as the American National Election Studies, and standard methods of statistical analysis are well suited to this type of data. In contrast, sociological factors such as civic talk have been relegated to the background of the field because definitive evidence of a causal relationship between social interactions and individual behavior has been hard to come by using existing data sources and methods of analysis.8

7This figure was determined by examining articles whose abstracts contained the following keywords: “civic participation,” “political participation,” or “voter.” The search was conducted with the Cambridge Journals online database, available at http://journals.cambridge

.org.

8A quintessential example of this focus on individual-level characteristics is the Michigan School of political behavior (see, e.g., Campbell et al. 1960). Research in this tradition focuses on partisan identification and other individual-level antecedents and negates the influence of sociological factors (Zuckerman 2004). In fact, the founders of the Michigan School went as far as to say, “By and large we shall consider external conditions as exogenous to our theoretical system” (Campbell et al. 1960, 27).

Chapter 2

Consequently, we are left with an incomplete understanding of participatory democracy.

A Solution: A Quasi-experimental Panel Study

Traditionally, “two-stage” regression models are used to overcome the types of analytical biases described above. In such specifications, the independent variable of interest (in this case, engaging in civic talk) is modeled with instrumental variables that do not correlate with the outcome variable being predicted (in this case, civic participation). This form of analysis is inappropriate for assessing the relationship between political discussion and political participation, however, because it is difficult to identify variables that reliably predict how often one engages in civic talk that are not correlated with one’s level of civic participation.9

If traditional methods for overcoming analytical bias are not an appropriate way to study civic talk, then what is? As illustrated in Table 2.2, one way to get past the biases that have handicapped this line of research would be to conduct an experiment by randomly assigning one group of individuals to be exposed to civic talk (the treatment group) and another group of like individuals not to be exposed to civic talk (the control group). Random assignment to treatment allows us to be confident that the outcomes of the study are actually being caused by civic talk instead of any other observed or unobserved factors.10 Ideally, data on the study population would also be collected over multiple points in time. Panel data further reduce analytical biases if the two phenomena are collected at separated points in time (with talk measured before participation).

But how can we collect data that look like this? A researcher cannot randomly pull people off of the street, force some to engage in civic talk and others not to, and see what happens as these new social networks evolve over time (at least, not very easily). Thus, to execute this research design we need to find a situation that naturally approximates it. Fortunately, such an environment exists: colleges where students are randomly assigned to dormitories.

9However, this type of analysis has been employed when the independent variable of interest is behavior, such as the voting choices of one’s peers, instead of discussion (see, e.g., Kenny 1992).

10Nickerson (2008) uses this type of experimental research design to test whether individuals living in the same household influence one another to vote. However, this study does not examine whether civic talk is the causal mechanism behind civic participation.

Civic Talk and Civic Participation

TABLE 2.2 Overcoming analytical biases associated with the study of civic talk

Analytical	Solution	Explanation	C-SNIP execution
problem	Solution	Explanation	C-SNIP execution
problem

		The individual is no
Selection bias		longer able to select	Study participants
		his or her peer group.	Study participants
	Random assign-	his or her peer group.	were randomly
	Random assign-		were randomly
	ment to peer	Any explanation of	assigned to their first-
	group	Any explanation of	year college room-
Endogeneity	group	civic participation that	year college room-
Endogeneity		civic participation that	mate.
bias		is not accounted for is	mate.
bias		is not accounted for is
		still orthogonal.

		Controlling for past	Patterns of civic
		patterns of behavior	Patterns of civic
		patterns of behavior	participation were
	Measure patterns	allows causation to be	participation were
	Measure patterns	allows causation to be	measured before
Reciprocal	of behavior before	inferred if there is a	measured before
Reciprocal	of behavior before	inferred if there is a	and after study
causation	and after exposure	relationship between	and after study
causation	and after exposure	relationship between	participants
	to civic talk	past instances of civic	participants
	to civic talk	past instances of civic	encountered their
		talk and current	encountered their
		talk and current	new peers at college.
		patterns of behavior.	new peers at college.
		patterns of behavior.

An example of such an environment is the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Random assignment is incorporated into the university’s housingassignment process because students are assigned to first-year college dormitory roommates based on a lottery. Incoming first-year dormitory residents rank the sixteen dormitories in order of where they want to live.11 Students are then “randomly sorted by computer” (University of Wisconsin, Madison, Division of University Housing 2004) to determine the order in which they will be assigned to dormitories. If space is available in the student’s first housing choice at the time his or her name is reached in the randomly sorted list, the student is randomly placed in a room in that dormitory. If space is not available, an attempt is made to place the student in his or her second choice of dormitory, and so on.

To gather information on this population, three surveys were administered between 2003 and 2007: the Collegiate Social Network Interaction Project (C-SNIP) Panel Survey. Survey participants initially completed two survey questionnaires: one at the beginning of the 2003–2004 school

11While this ranking procedure had an effect on the dormitory to which students were assigned, students were still randomly assigned to roommates within that dormitory. Moreover, fixed effects control variables for dormitory assignment, as well as a series of variables that measure why students ranked the dormitories in the way that they did, are included in the analysis.

Chapter 2

year, before they were affected by their college roommates, and a second at the end of the school year. During the first wave of the study, students were asked about their patterns of civic participation during high school. During the second wave of the study, students were asked how civically active they were during their first year of college, as well as about their relationship with their randomly assigned roommates. In the spring of 2007, during their fourth year of college, students who had participated in the 2003–2004 C-SNIP surveys were re-interviewed.

Additional Analytical Precision

via Data Pre-processing

While the process of assigning C-SNIP participants to dormitory roommates was random, these students were allowed to discuss politics and current events with their roommates as much or as little as they wished. Because of this deviation from random assignment, factors that are out of my control could affect both the treatment (the amount of civic talk to which each student was exposed) and the outcome of interest (civic participation) (Achen 1986; Dunning 2008). For example, students who had been active in voluntary civic organizations before they came to college were more likely to discuss politics and current events with their new roommates (r = .19, p < .01). Prior experience participating in voluntary civic organizations also increased subjects’ likelihood of choosing to participate in such activities during their first year of college (r = .37, p <

.01).

A seemingly logical way to address this feature of the data would be to add offending factors such as past patterns of civic participation to the analysis as control variables. Unfortunately, this approach is not a sufficient solution. Including variables in the analysis that are strongly related to both the independent and dependent variables being examined greatly reduces the precision of the analysis (Achen 1986). However, this feature of the C-SNIP study can be accounted for by pre-processing the data with a “matching” procedure (see, e.g., Dunning 2008; Ho et al. 2007a, 2007b, 2007c). Under this procedure, the effect of engaging in civic talk is measured by comparing the civic participation habits of survey respondents who are similar to one another except that one engaged in civic talk and the other did not. By comparing the participatory habits of similar individuals who did and did not engage in civic talk, we can be confident that any observed difference in civic participation between them is

Civic Talk and Civic Participation

unrelated to the factors on which the respondents were matched and, as such, is a consequence of civic talk.12 More detail on how this procedure was conducted is included in Appendix C.

Additional Qualitative Evidence

While survey data allow for systematic study of political phenomena, this form of inquiry is limited by the fact that numbers alone cannot give us a full picture of what actually occurs when peers discuss politics and current events. Richer qualitative data are needed to construct a more holistic picture of how civic talk might influence participatory democracy. Therefore, the quantitative findings presented throughout this book are verified with data collected through a series of focus groups that were conducted with the 2007–2008 first-year class of students at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. This group of students is different from the students examined in the panel survey, which allows me to test the claims I am making with the survey data with another case. However, like the C-SNIP Panel Survey participants, the focus group participants were randomly assigned to their first-year dormitories under the same lottery procedure. Thus, while the qualitative and quantitative data presented in this book come from two separate cases, they are comparable cases.

In total, four focus groups were conducted with eight students in each.13 Students were assigned to one of the four groups based on how civically active they had been in high school (“high” versus “low”) and how much civic talk they engaged in with their randomly assigned roommates (“high” versus “low”). Structuring the focus groups in this way allows me to examine not just whether civic talk causes civic participation, but also

12Matching is less precise than in a controlled experiment because the procedure does not account for unobserved differences between individuals who did and did not engage in civic talk (Arceneaux et al. 2006). However, given the extensive set of pre-treatment covariates that were used in the matching procedure (see Appendix C), it is difficult to think of any meaningful unobserved factors that are not accounted for in the analysis. Moreover, unobserved differences between individuals who did and did not engage in civic talk are likely to correlate with observed differences and thus are accounted for by proxy in the matching procedure (Stuart and Green 2008). As such, and given that a true experiment is an extremely difficult (if not impossible) research design to execute for this research question, matching (in concert with panel data and quasi-random assignment to treatment) is arguably a next-best alternative.

13Budget constraints prevented me from conducting more than four groups. Nonetheless, subsequent chapters show that there is striking agreement between the results of the focus groups and the panel survey.

Chapter 2

how the effect might vary from person to person and from peer group to peer group. For example, individuals with prior experience participating in civic activities may be better able to translate civic talk into civic participation than their less experienced cohorts. This and other related questions are addressed in Chapters 5 and 6.

Case Selection and External Validity

In any scientific study, researchers need to be concerned with how representative their findings are vis-à-vis the case or cases that they have selected to study. The number of cases and the method in which they are selected determine how confident we can be in the results that are generated and in how applicable those results are to the wider world. Keeping this in mind, it is necessary to note that the main sources of evidence presented in this book come from two student populations at one university. Nonetheless, the insights we can gain from these data are of broader import to students of participatory democracy for two reasons: for their internal validity (i.e., the ability to make causal inferences) and because collegiate social networks are a “crucial” case of peer influence (i.e., if we are unable to show causation in this case, we are unlikely to find it in other cases).

The Tradeoff between Internal and External Validity

Figure 2.2 illustrates a necessary tradeoff that is made in any scientific study. The figure shows a taxonomy of studies classified on two dimensions: external and internal validity. Ideally, we would like our data to be representative of the entire population in which we are interested (externally valid) while simultaneously allowing us to make definitive claims about causation (internally valid). However, this unique mix of strengths is very difficult, if nearly impossible, to create in one study.

Because it is difficult to maximize both internal and external validity, we are left with the choice of maximizing either one or the other. As addressed earlier, by relying on large-scale social surveys the existing literature on civic talk has already maximized external validity. With these data, we can say with certainty that the types of people who engage in civic talk also participate in civic activities. However, with this type of evidence we have been unable to show that civic talk actually causes civic participation. In response to this persistent problem, I used a different approach to gather the evidence presented in this book: increase internal

Civic Talk and Civic Participation

VALIDITY	High
EXTERNAL	Low

INTERNAL VALIDITY

High	Low

Difficult	Extant Literature

C-SNIP Studies	Undesirable

FIGURE 2.2 Comparing analytic strengths and weaknesses

validity to make more definitive causal claims. The quasi-experimental nature of the data presented in this book allows me to make more reliable causal inferences about the relationship between civic talk and civic participation, an undertaking that had not yet been accomplished.

To restate this point using slightly different language: Those who are critical of research on social networks cannot “have it both ways.”14 On one hand, skeptics have observed that while extant data sets on civic talk are representative of the wider public (i.e., high external validity), these data cannot be used to make causal inferences about social influence (i.e., low internal validity). In this we are in agreement; this persistent problem is what is motivated me to write this book. On the other hand, critics cannot dismiss research solely because of lower external validity when a scholar collects data that can be used to assess causation more accurately. As illustrated in Figure 2.2, the tradeoff between internal and external validity is inevitable. Given that the current goal of social network scholars is (or, at least, should be) to show whether a causal relationship exists between civic talk and civic participation, it is necessary to focus our energy on examining internally valid cases. Once causation is (or is not) established in such cases, we can then tackle issues of external validity by examining additional cases to validate, or reject, previous findings.

College Students as a “Crucial” Case of Peer Influence

In addition to increasing internal validity, the case of first-year college students is also an ideal setting in which to study civic talk because it

14 I thank Scott McClurg for this language.

Chapter 2

represents a “crucial” case of peer influence.15 College is such a case for two reasons. First, college is a “most likely” case of peer influence (Gerring 2001). When a young person leaves his or her family to begin life as an independent adult, peers become highly influential in his or her life (Beck 1977; Campbell et al. 1960). Consequently, we should expect to find evidence of peer effects in this environment. In other words, college is a crucial case to study because if we do not find evidence of a causal relationship between civic talk and civic participation in this environment, we are not likely to find it in other contexts, where peers may be less influential. But if the data presented in this book do show that civic talk has an effect on this collegiate population, we have reason to invest resources in investigating whether this phenomenon occurs in other cases. Possible methods for conducting such further research are discussed in Chapter 8.

In a related vein, a person’s first year of college is also a crucial case because it is a “paradigmatic” case of peer influence (Gerring 2001). A paradigmatic case is one that illustrates the theoretical or conceptual importance of the phenomena being studied. For example, one would not want to study communism without examining the case of the former Soviet Union (Gerring 2001, 219). This case has come to define what communism is and thus is necessary to study when examining that form of governance. In the same vein, collegiate peers define what peer influence is because they are a central facet of the individual’s life as he or she begins adulthood. Moreover, collegiate peers illustrate the importance of peer influence because they are likely to influence the patterns of civic participation that young people carry with them through the rest of their lives. Otherwise stated, and to place this discussion of case selection in a more normative context, steady declines in civic participation over the past half-century have left many wondering whether this dangerous disengagement from public life will continue. If it does, the fate of democracy is in serious peril (Putnam 2000; but see also McDonald and Popkin 2001). Thus, it is incumbent on us to understand how the current generation of young citizens is learning (or not learning) to participate in civic activities. This knowledge will be critically important as scholars and practitioners continue to study and attempt to maintain the strength of civil society.

15Crucial cases are those that are, “for one reason or another, crucial to a concept or to a broader body of theory” (Gerring 2001, 219; see also Eckstein 1975).

Civic Talk and Civic Participation

Conclusion

The questions addressed in this book are not new. Because of the critical need for citizens to be involved in the processes of democratic governance, social scientists have always been interested in studying civic participation. Moreover, there is a growing literature on the influence that civic talk within social networks has on civil society. However, the extant literature has not shown a causal relationship between civic talk and civic participation. For this reason, this line of research has been heavily discounted, and our understanding of civic participation is incomplete because it centers on individual-level antecedents of human behavior. Moreover, the inability to establish causation means that second-order questions, such as which causal mechanisms drive the civic talk effect and whether the effect varies under different circumstances, have been understudied.

In response, what is new and innovative in this study is the way I have chosen to gather my data. By leveraging a situation in nature that approximates an experiment, collecting data over time, making use of data preprocessing, and verifying results from survey data with rich qualitative focus group data, I present results in the following chapters that add to our understanding of how participatory democracy works. In the next chapter, I begin this task with a descriptive examination of civic talk and civic participation. I then show that a causal link exists between these two variables.

Does Civic Talk Cause

Civic Participation?

Political discussions with roommates and floormates have allowed me to see my own political ignorance and have made me want to read [and] learn more about current events.

—C-SNIP Panel Survey respondent

he experience this student had during her first year in college is a Ttextbook example of what we would see if civic talk has a meaningful effect on how individuals choose to participate in civil society.

The student came to college with a given set of characteristics and patterns of behavior. She was then placed into a new social setting in her dormitory, where the interactions she had with her randomly assigned roommate had an influence on how she looked at and participated in civil society. In other words, engaging in civic talk led the student to have what we could call a civic “awakening,” a moment that led her to become more engaged with the processes of democratic governance.

Chapter 2 introduced the concept of civic talk and showed how quasiexperimental panel survey data and rich qualitative focus group data can be used to overcome analytical biases that have remained unresolved in the literature on civic participation. In this chapter, I use these two data sets to test whether the experience described above is the exception or the rule. I begin by describing how civic participation and civic talk are measured. I then test whether these two phenomena are causally related to each other. The results of the analysis show that civic talk leads individuals to participate in civic activities. These data also show that the magnitude and certainty of the civic talk effect varies based on the civic

Chapter 3

act in question. In short, the evidence shows that civic talk encourages individuals to participate in civic activities, but only in those activities in which they are interested in engaging.

Measuring Civic Talk

The primary measure of civic talk used in this study is based on the C-SNIP Panel Survey question, “When you talk with your roommate, how often do you discuss politics and current events: often, sometimes, rarely, or never?” Use of self-reports is standard practice in this area of research (see, e.g., Campbell and Wolbrecht 2006; Huckfeldt and Sprague 1991, 1995; Huckfeldt et al. 1995; Kenny 1992, 1994; Lake and Huckfeldt 1998; McClurg 2003, 2004; Mutz 2002). An alternative to relying on students’ self-reports about how much civic talk occurred between roommates, however, would be to use a more exogenous measure: the report supplied by each subject’s roommate. This strategy depends on correctly identifying roommate pairs. Based on the small number of subjects who were willing to report their dormitory addresses, only eight-four roommate pairs could be identified. Unfortunately, this sample is not large enough to conduct a thorough investigation of the relationship between civic talk and civic participation. That said, this small amount of data suggests that the use of self-reports is a valid approach. An analysis of the amount of civic talk reported by these roommate pairs shows that roommates agree on how much civic talk they engaged in during their first year of college (t = −1.14, p = .16). Thus, in this population self-reports of civic talk behavior are likely to be observationally equivalent to an exogenous measure of civic talk.

Frequency of Civic Talk

In line with measurements taken in adult populations (see the “What Is Civic Talk?” section in Chapter 2), civic talk is pervasive but not at the top of everyone’s list of discussion topics in the two C-SNIP study populations. On average, C-SNIP Panel Survey respondents reported that they conversed with their randomly assigned roommates somewhere between “sometimes” and “often” (an average of 2.4 on the 0–3 scale ranging from “never” to “often”). In comparison, when specifically asked how often they engaged in civic talk, C-SNIP respondents reported that they participated in these types of conversations somewhere between “rarely” and “sometimes” (an average of 1.4 on the 0–3 scale ranging from “never” to “often”).

Does Civic Talk Cause Civic Participation?

Participants in the C-SNIP Focus Group Study painted a similar picture of how frequently civic talk occurred. When asked to list the topics that they discussed with their roommate, politics and current events were always on the list, although never at the top of the list. Instead, classes and course work, music, television shows, celebrity gossip, sports, plans for the future, and dating were among the various discussion topics that were mentioned sooner and more frequently throughout the course of each of the focus group sessions. In addition, when asked to directly compare how often civic talk occurred relative to the discussion of other topics, the vast majority of the focus group participants reported that they discussed politics and current events with their roommate less frequently than other subjects.

Through further discussion, the focus group participants expressed two reasons for why civic talk is less frequent than other types of conversations. One reason is conflict avoidance: In each of the focus groups, the desire to avoid disagreements or arguments with one’s roommate was a common explanation for why civic talk was infrequent, and sometimes actively avoided. This type of exchange was typical in all four of the focus groups:

PARTICIPANT: I think my roommate has the opposite view that I do. I don’t know, because I don’t really talk to her, but I get that impression. So I figure I will just avoid it just to save time so we don’t fight about it or, like, I don’t know, get in a disagreement.

MODERATOR: That’s interesting. So it’s a way to avoid conflict?

PARTICIPANT: Yeah.

Moreover, the focus group sessions revealed that some students would avoid engaging in civic talk even when they had similar political preferences to their roommates’. As one participant stated:

We’re both pretty liberal. But I still disagree with him a lot, and so, like, every once in a while we’ll talk about it. But it’s different between me and, like, a friend where we can talk about it and, like, not get along and then leave and see each other again, and it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. But if you kind of get in, like, a fight with your roommate, it kind of sucks.

Statements of conflict avoidance like these are not, perhaps, very surprising given that these students had an incentive to maintain positive

Chapter 3

relationships with the person they shared small dormitory rooms with for an entire academic year.1

The second most commonly stated reason for why civic talk is not as prevalent as other types of discussions is a lack of interest in politics, either on the part of the individual or on the part of his or her roommate. When directly asked why politics and current events were not frequently discussed, a number of participants in each of the focus groups made statements such as, “My roommate doesn’t like politics,” “It’s almost like a boring topic,” and “Politics usually gets old pretty quickly.” One participant went as far as to say, “My roommate’s more or less mystified by anyone interested in politics.” Another participant summarized his experience by saying, “I asked my roommate once if he was interested in politics or the election or anything, and he said no, so that was the extent of our political conversation.”

Subject Matters and Sources of Civic Talk

Perhaps not surprisingly, the focus groups revealed that civic talk conversations typically occurred in response to current events. A variety of topics were discussed by roommates, including the Iraq war, a student who had recently been murdered near the university campus, the recent election of a student to the City Council, genocide in Darfur, global climate change, and the 2008 presidential primaries. Given that the focus group sessions were conducted in the early spring of 2008, the presidential primaries were the most common topic of conversation. The election was especially in the forefront of conversations between roommates because the State of Wisconsin had just held a presidential primary election on February 19, and each of the major candidates from both parties had held campaign rallies on or near the University of Wisconsin campus. Arguably, the most salient of these events was the large rally held by Barack Obama on February 13, the night of his victories in the “Potomac Primaries” in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. The vast majority of the focus group participants reported that they had talked about this rally with their roommates, and many reported having attended (or having attempted to attend) the event.2

1The effect that disagreement has on the relationship between civic talk and civic participation is examined in Chapter 6.

2Senator Obama filled the university’s main indoor stadium to capacity, with more than 19,000 attendees, many of whom were students at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His main opponent at the time, Senator Hillary Clinton, held a much smaller rally of

Does Civic Talk Cause Civic Participation?

Along with highlighting the specific topics discussed when engaging in civic talk, the focus groups revealed two conduits through which politics and current events were brought up during conversations between roommates. One was news media consumption. A majority of the students mentioned that civic talk would occur during normal everyday conversation in relation to what was in the news that day. Statements such as these were common in all of the focus groups:

I would tend to just like read the news on CNN, and so, like, if something pops up usually that I’m opinionated about, then that’s when we starting talking. So it just kind of depends on that.

Well, like, we read the paper, so usually we, like, discuss what’s in the paper.

It usually doesn’t come up unless, like, there’s something [on] TV on it, and then we’re, like, “Oh, that’s kind of interesting,” and then we’ll start talking about it.

The second most often mentioned sources of civic talk were the personal interests and extracurricular activities of individuals and their roommates. Statements such as these were common in each of the focus groups:

We talk a lot more about social issues, too, and like I said before, [my roommate is], like, a really big environmentalist, so she always has something to say about a candidate and what they think about recycling and stuff like that. So we talk a lot about that.

I always talk about Barack Obama, because I’m a huge fan.

We talk a lot about [health maintenance organizations] and doctors and things because she’s going into med[ical] school now as a doctor, so I think we just relate on it. And we talk because I am really passionate about Darfur in Africa, and so we can talk about that.

Measuring Civic Participation

As discussed in Chapter 2, civic participation is a form of activity that pulls an individual out of his or her private life and into civil society. This

approximately 2,000 attendees at an off-campus location on February 18. None of the focus group participants mentioned that they had attended the Clinton event or discussed it with their roommates.

34 Chapter 3

TABLE 3.1 Patterns of civic participation during high school and college

	Mean activity level		Percentage inactive
	High	1st year	High	1st year
Civic activities	school	of college	school	of college

Participation in voluntary
civic organizations
(0–21 point activity scale)	6.60	2.43	5	35
Participation in political activities
(0–6 point activity scale)	1.16	.56	44	68
Voter turnout (2004 presidential
primary) (%)		51		49

Source: C-SNIP Panel Survey.

Note: As is common in studies of voter turnout, the figures are likely inflated. For example, data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey show that in the 2004 presidential election, only 47 percent of citizens between eighteen and twenty-four turned out to vote (Faler 2005).

large set of activities can be broken down into two categories: political civic activity and non-political civic activity. The analyses in this chapter examine three such forms of behavior: voter turnout, participation in other types of political activities, and membership in voluntary civic organizations. A summary of how active students in the C-SNIP Panel Survey were in these activities during high school and their first year of college is presented in Table 3.1.

Voter Turnout and Participation in

Other Political Activities

The C-SNIP Panel Survey collected information on two forms of political participation. One measure was derived from how active each student reported being in three different activities: contacting an elected official about an issue, participating in a march or protest, and working for a political campaign at any level of government (including student government campaigns). For each type of activity, students were asked to rate how many times they had participated over the previous year: “never,” “once,” or “more than once.” Participation in these activities was coded as the sum of the three activity scales.

A second measure of political participation was based on each student’s self-reported voter turnout in the 2004 presidential primary. Voting is similar to the other political activities described above in that each of

Does Civic Talk Cause Civic Participation?

these acts is motivated by the individual’s desire to influence the government. However, voting is treated separately in this analysis because it is the only behavior that allows citizens to have a direct voice in selecting their leaders. Moreover, despite declines in voter turnout over the past fifty years, voting differs from other political activities because it is the least costly and most widely participated in political act in the United States (Verba et al. 1995, 51).

Non-Political Civic Activity: Participation in

Voluntary Membership Organizations

In total, this analysis accounts for seven different types of voluntary civic group affiliations: charitable and voluntary service; leadership and civic training; groups that “take stands on political issues or current events”; partisan groups; student government; student publications such as newspapers; and speech clubs and teams (e.g., forensics, debate). For each of these types of organizations, students were asked to rate how active they were on a 0–3 point scale, ranging from “not at all active” to “very active.” Participation is coded as the total amount of organizational activity in which each student engaged (i.e., the sum of the seven 0–3-point scales).

These voluntary civic organizations may from time to time engage in politically relevant activities. For example, members of the university’s student government might lobby the state legislature to provide more resources to the university, or a service organization dedicated to helping the homeless might lobby the local government to provide more shelters. Nonetheless, it is important to underscore that the act of participating in one of these voluntary civic organizations is distinct from engaging in one of the political activities described above. As discussed in Chapter 2, voluntary civic associations may be politically relevant. However, they are not classified as political activities because they do not directly influence the processes of governance (i.e., they do not involve citizens explicitly attempting to directly affect decisions made by the government or determine who is selected to run the government by influencing electoral outcomes).

Trends in Civic Participation across Activities

The data in Table 3.1 show that C-SNIP Panel Survey respondents participated in political activities far less frequently than in voluntary civic organizations. Overall, 5 percent of students reported that they had not participated in any voluntary civic membership organizations during high

Chapter 3

school, compared with 44 percent who claimed that they had not participated in any political activities. This trend continued into the first year of college, where 35 percent of students reported not participating in any voluntary organization activities, compared with 68 percent who reported not participating in any political activities.

Participants in the C-SNIP Focus Group Study provided a similar picture of the gap between political and non-political civic participation. When asked to describe the civic participation in which they had engaged during their first year of college, the vast majority of the activities mentioned by the focus group participants were non-political in nature. The one notable exception to this trend, however, was voting. Many of the focus group participants spontaneously mentioned that they had voted in the 2008 presidential primary, and the vast majority of participants reported that they had voted when specifically asked whether they had. As mentioned in a previous section, the majority of the focus group participants also reported that they had attended (or had attempted to attend) the large rally staged by Senator Barack Obama on February 13, 2008. The prevalence of voting and engagement with the 2008 primary elections makes sense, given the close proximity of the Wisconsin primary to when the focus groups were conducted and the broad appeal of the Obama campaign among young people.

Engagement with the 2008 election aside, what explains the sizeable gap between political participation and participation in voluntary civic organizations in these two student populations? A likely explanation for why these students are not politically active is because they are not politically engaged. For example, in the C-SNIP Panel Survey, subjects were asked, “In general, which do you think is the better way to solve important issues facing the country, through political involvement (for example, voting, working for political candidates, and the like) or through community involvement (for example, volunteering in the community, and the like)?” Students vastly preferred community involvement to political involvement in both high school (77%) and during their first year of college (72%).3 Not surprisingly, political engagement and political participation are related to each other. Students who cited “community involvement” as their preferred mode of civic activity were less active in political activities both in high school (t = −2.07, p = .04) and during their first year of college (t = −2.03, p = .05).

3These figures are commensurate with national samples of college students: see, e.g., Harvard University Institute of Politics 2000.

Does Civic Talk Cause Civic Participation?

This said, while this student population was politically apathetic, it still adhered to civic-minded norms (for similar findings, see Zukin et al. 2006). For example, while political disengagement correlates with low levels of political participation, panel study respondents were equally likely to participate in voluntary civic organizations in high school (t = −.17, p = .87) and during the first year of college (t = −1.12, p = .27), regardless of whether they cited “political involvement” or “community involvement” as their preferred mode of civic expression. Moreover, when asked in wave 2 of the panel study, “How important do you think it is for people like you to be active and interested in politics and current events: very, somewhat, not very, not at all?” 91 percent of the respondents said that civic participation was somewhat or very important.4 In short, the C-SNIP Panel Survey respondents understood the virtues of participating in civil society. They did not, however, see politics as a desirable venue for such activity.

The focus group participants offered a similar assessment of the gap between political and non-political activity. A number of students mentioned that they were less engaged with politics than with non-political matters. These two comments especially illustrate this attitude:

I’m not exactly really involved in a politically affiliated group as far as, like, a party goes, but I do feel like it’s important to at least represent yourself in a number form [sic] with like humanitarian kind of things.

The reason I don’t get involved in a lot of these political groups, is I think it’s, like, really bureaucratic and not that effective. And as much as I care about it, I really don’t want to, you know, walk around posting fliers or handing out stickers or [sit] in a booth at whatever event. It seems, like, really boring, really boring.

In a similar vein, some students mentioned that they felt unqualified or unprepared to participate in political activities. As one student put it, “We don’t talk about political activities, because we don’t know about anything.” Or, as articulated in this exchange between the moderator and two participants:

MODERATOR: And how about the more political activities?

PARTICIPANT 1: I wish I could get involved in more. It’s just kind of overwhelming at first. There’s just so much stuff going on and

4This question was not asked of students in the high school questionnaire.

Chapter 3

stuff, so I’m interested in politics and stuff and even, like, the other side of politics. I don’t know. Hopefully, next year I’ll be a little bit more involved with that.

PARTICIPANT 2: I like to know what other people think about it, but I don’t know anything about it, so I feel stupid.

Low levels of political participation, engagement, and efficacy are not very surprising, given the relatively young age of the populations examined in the C-SNIP studies. As shown by the high number of politically inactive students reported in Table 3.1, these young people did not have extensive prior experience participating in political activities before coming to college.5 In contrast, the vast majority of the students in the study did have some form of prior experience participating in non-political civic activities—that is, only 5 percent reported that they had not participated in any civic organizations before coming to college, compared with 44 percent who reported that they had never participated in political activities before coming to college. Past patterns of civic behavior are meaningful because civic participation, like any other form of behavior, is habitual (Brady et al. 1999; Burns et al. 2001; Fowler 2006; Gerber et al. 2003; Plutzer 2002; Putnam 2000; Rosenstone and Hansen 1993; Verba et al. 1995). Since the students examined in this study did not gain extensive experience participating in political activities during high school, it is not surprising that they were not very active in or engaged with politics during their first year of college.

Trends in Civic Participation over Time

A second notable trend in Table 3.1 is that this population of students was less civically active during the first year of college than in high school. Data from the focus groups lead to a similar conclusion. When specifically asked to compare how civically active they had been in high school with how active they had been during their first year of college, the vast majority of the focus group participants reported that they had been more active during their high school years.

One explanation for this marked drop in participation between high school and the first year of college is that the first year of college is a period of significant transition in one’s life. After leaving home and family

5This lack of experience is sometimes legally mandated, as in the case of the right to vote being extended at age 18.

Does Civic Talk Cause Civic Participation?

for college, young people are forced to adjust to a new and very different lifestyle as independent adults. Consequently, participation in civic activities should be expected to become less of a priority when a person needs to spend his or her time and energy learning how to navigate a new town, make new friends, learn how to study, and the like. Existing research in the fields of higher education, psychology, and political science offer support for this hypothesis. The transition to college has been documented to be a stressful and life-changing process as the student leans how to find his or her place in a new social and academic environment (Boyer 1987; Compas et al. 1986; Cutrona 1982; Takahashi and Majima 1994; Terenzini et al. 1994). Moreover, studies have shown that civic engagement and participation drop during times of transition and relocation (Putnam 2000, 204).

Data from the C-SNIP Panel Survey also offer evidence in support of this hypothesis. For example, in the first and second waves of the study respondents were asked, “How much free time have you had during the average week to participate in the types of organizations you answered questions about at the beginning of this survey: a lot of time, a moderate amount of time, very little time, or no time at all?” Survey participants reported having significantly less free time to dedicate to civic participation during their first year of college than they had in high school (t = −19.22, p < .01). Respondents were also asked, “Generally speaking, how much would you say that you know about politics and current events: a great deal, some, or not much?” Comparing the responses to this question given during the first and second waves of the survey shows that the students felt they were more informed about politics and current events during high school than they had been during the first year of college (t = 7.28, p < .01). In the first and second waves of the panel survey students were also asked, “How many days per week, on average, have you read or watched the news to learn about politics and current events?” Compared with their habits during high school, this population consumed significantly less news about politics and current events during the first year of college (t = −7.36, p < .01).

Do these measures help explain the participation gap between high school and the first year of college? Logically, we would expect that people with less free time would be less civically active. Time is a resource that is requisite for participation in civil society (Putnam 2000; Verba et al. 1995). However, the results in Table 3.2 show that available free time does not correlate with how civically active these students chose to be during their first year of college. The data do show, however, that political

Chapter 3

TABLE 3.2 Free time, political knowledge, media use, and patterns of civic participation during the first year of college (correlations)

		Knowledge about	News
	Free	politics and	media
Civic activities	time	current events	usage

Participation in voluntary civic organizations	.05	.32***	.24***
Participation in political activities	.05	.31***	.30***
Voter turnout (2004 presidential primary)	.05	.22***	.20***

Source: C-SNIP Panel Survey.

***p ≤ .01.

knowledge and news media usage are highly correlated with all three forms of civic participation. For this reason, declines in knowledge and media use between high school and the first year of college help explain declines in civic participation over this same time period.

The idea that civic participation becomes less of a priority as people transition to life on their own at college was also a pervasive theme in the focus groups. Statements such as these were typical throughout the sessions:

In the beginning of the year, I was just kind of stressed with school and getting used to everything here, and I didn’t really pay attention to any of that kind of stuff.

I felt for the first, maybe first, semester, I was completely removed. I stopped reading the news. I was just figuring stuff out and became busy. . . . [I]n addition, . . . a large part of my political involvement was, like, you know, talking with my family at dinner. So mixing that up in a new environment [at college], it really caused me to do a lot less.

At the beginning of the year when we first got here, they had a club fair, but I was just so busy meeting people that I didn’t really think of it then.

While civic disengagement is a satisfying explanation for the drop in participation between high school and college, an additional explanation is the prevalence of service learning opportunities in American primary and secondary schools. These programs lower the costs of civic participation by providing prepackaged opportunities for students to become active. Moreover, the programs can raise the costs associated with not

Does Civic Talk Cause Civic Participation?

participating, because participation is often mandated as a requirement for graduation or course credit. Such programs became increasingly popular at the time that the C-SNIP Panel Survey participants were completing elementary and secondary school. On the federal level, these programs started receiving support when President George H. W. Bush enacted the National and Community Service Act of 1990, which created the Commission on National and Community Service (Public Law 101-610). The commission’s main duty was to create and support service learning programs. President Bill Clinton extended federal support for service learning programs by reauthorizing the National and Community Service Act under the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993 (Public Law 103-82). This legislation merged a number of different agencies focused on civic involvement into the Corporation for National and Community Service. The act also established Learn and Serve America, a program that supports service learning programs.

In response to actions taken on the federal level, the American states have increased their commitment to providing service learning opportunities to school-age children. This has especially been the case in the State of Wisconsin, where 72 percent of the C-SNIP Panel Survey participants attended high school. For example, the state’s Department of Public Instruction established the Cooperative Educational Service Agency to promote service learning programs and to act as a liaison between schools and the federal Learn and Serve America program. The state also allows school districts to “require a pupil to participate in community service activities in order to receive a high school diploma” (Wisconsin Statute 118.33).

In summary, the populations studied in this book completed primary and secondary school as service learning education was growing in popularity across the United States. Moreover, the vast majority of the students had attended high school in a state where service learning is a requirement for graduation. Participating in mandatory service learning programs likely led these students to take part in an abnormally high number of activities during high school because civic activities are easier to engage in when opportunities to act are arranged for you or if sanctions are placed on those who choose not to participate (Olson 1965; Rosenstone and Hansen 1993; Verba et al. 1995). On entering college, these students no longer had built-in incentives to participate. Consequently, it is not surprising that participation levels fell after leaving high school.

The focus group participants corroborated the notion that civic participation was easier to engage in during high school because it was required

Chapter 3

or because structured opportunities were provided. A number of participants made comments such as these:

[I’m] a lot less involved now, I guess, just because in high school it was much more convenient, because it was either before or after class, so you’re already right there. It was just more of a clear-cut commitment.

I miss the structure. I think it’s in a way hurt me. Like, I have a lot of free time, and I don’t know what to do with it.

I think during high school I put more time into it only because I was in government class and we had hours required for that.

In a related vein, a number of students in the focus groups also appeared to be using their time at college to take a break from the civic participation requirements they were obliged to fulfill in high school.

I guess I kind of lost motivation for it. It used to be a mandatory part of my life to volunteer and be a part of things for school or other organizations. But now it’s, like, up to me, and I’d rather not.

I was student council president and stuff like that. I actually had a class hour dedicated to filling out forms and talking to people higher up than me, going and talking to everyone in their school and stuff. And I had to organize one volunteer thing a month and stuff like that. So I was very happy to get rid of all that and have time off from that.

I haven’t done as much this year, but I think it’s more like for my first year, I’m a freshman, and so I just, like, want to get settled in and not have to worry about that stuff as much. I figure I could do it later if I wanted to.

Does Civic Talk Cause Civic Participation?

Survey Evidence

Participation in Voluntary Civic Organizations

To what extent does civic talk influence how active a person chooses to be in civil society? I begin to answer this question with a regression analysis of how active the C-SNIP Panel Survey respondents were in voluntary

Does Civic Talk Cause Civic Participation?

TABLE 3.3 The effect of civic talk on participation in voluntary civic organizations during the first year of college (regression analysis)

	Matched	Unmatched
	(1)	(2)

Civic talk	.81**	.86***
	(.30)	(.18)
Participation in voluntary civic organizations	.22***	.25***
during high school	(.03)	(.02)
Constant	1.67	.78
	(1.76)	(1.20)
Adjusted R2	.13	.18

Source: C-SNIP Panel Survey.

Model Type: Ordinary least squares (Imai et al. 2007c).

Note: Dormitory assignment fixed effects were included in the analysis but are omitted from the table (none of the coefficients were statistically significant). Standard errors are in parentheses. N = 1,044.

*p ≤ .10; **p ≤ .05; ***p ≤ .01.

civic organizations during their first year of college (Table 3.3). To assess the effect of the matching data pre-processing procedure, the table presents results for both the matched and unmatched data sets. Also, to increase the precision of the analysis, each model controls for how active subjects had been in voluntary civic organizations during high school, before they engaged in civic talk with their roommate (i.e., a lag of the dependent variable), as well as for how the dormitory assignment process was executed (i.e., a fixed effect for each dormitory; these coefficients are omitted from the table because none were statistically significant).

Columns 1 and 2 of Table 3.3 show that subjects who engaged in civic talk with their randomly assigned roommates were more likely to participate in voluntary civic organizations during their first year of college. Substantively, the matched data set (column 1) shows that participation rates among subjects who engaged in civic talk were 38 percent higher than that of subjects who did not engage in civic talk (an increase from 2.1 to 2.9 on the voluntary organization participation scale).6 The estimated civic talk effect in the unmatched data set (column 2) is 45 percent (an increase from 2.0 to 2.9 on the voluntary organization participation

6This and other substantive interpretations of regression coefficients presented in this book were calculated with the setx and sim procedures in the Zelig package for R (Imai et al. 2007a, 2007b). Unless otherwise indicated, throughout this book all other factors included in the analysis are held at their means when calculating such estimates.

Chapter 3

Expected Change in Participation

4.0

3.5

3.0

2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

Civic Talk

Past Participation

FIGURE 3.1 Comparing the effects of civic talk and past participation on participation in voluntary civic organizations during the first year of college

Source: C-SNIP Panel Survey

Notes: The line on each bar represents the 95 percent confidence interval about the estimate. Figures are based on the matched data regression analysis in Table 3.3. The effect of civic talk is calculated as the level of participation in civic organizations estimated to have been engaged in by individuals who were exposed to civic talk, minus that of those who were not exposed, all other factors in the model held at their means. The effect of past participation is calculated by comparing the estimated levels of participation for subjects who had average levels of prior experience with those who had the maximum level of prior experience, all other factors in the model held at their means.

scale), indicating that the influence of civic talk would have been overestimated if the matching process had not been applied to this analysis.7 Moreover, closer comparison of the civic talk coefficients in columns 1 and 2 shows that the matched data set produced a larger standard error. This shows that the matched data set produced a less certain, and therefore more conservative, estimate of the civic talk effect.

To understand the magnitude of the effect that civic talk has on participation in voluntary civic organizations more clearly, Figure 3.1 compares the effect of civic talk to the effect of having participated in voluntary

7This said, it is worth noting that the matching procedure did not drastically affect the results; the civic talk effect was statistically significant regardless of whether the matching procedure was used. Since the procedure worked correctly by significantly improving the similarity between individuals who did and did not engage in civic talk (see Appendix C), this could mean one of two things (or both). First, the use of panel data and random assignment of roommates, on their own, could have reduced the biases that are assumed to exist in studies of social networks. Alternatively, the small differences between the matched and unmatched results could indicate that biases thought to be present in social network studies are not as virulent as critics believe they are.

Does Civic Talk Cause Civic Participation?

civic organizations in high school before engaging in civic talk in college (the lagged dependent variable). These results illustrate that, while the effect of civic talk is statistically significant, it is not as substantively large as that of prior participatory experience. In fact, the results in Figure 3.1 show that the effect of engaging in civic talk is less than half of the effect of having above average patterns of prior participatory experience. More detailed discussion of how the effect of civic talk compares with other antecedents of civic participation is taken up in Chapter 7.

Participation in Political Activities

While civic talk has a significant effect on participation in voluntary civic organizations, the results in Table 3.4 show that such conversations have a less reliable influence over whether a person participates in political activities. Comparing columns 1 and 2, we see that civic talk did not have a statistically significant effect on how politically active subjects were during their first year of college, regardless of whether the matched or unmatched data were used.

What explains this difference between participation in voluntary civic organizations and participation in political activities? The less reliable influence of civic talk on political participation is likely caused by the fact that the C-SNIP population is not politically active or engaged. As documented in Table 3.1, only 35 percent of the subjects reported that they

TABLE 3.4 The effect of civic talk on participation in political activities during the first year of college (regression analysis)

	Matched	Unmatched
	(1)	(2)

Civic talk among roommates	−.02	.05
	(.09)	(.07)
Participation in political activities	.37***	.35***
during high school	(.04)	(.02)
Constant	.55	.50
	(.76)	(.46)
Adjusted R2	.24	.21

Source: C-SNIP Panel Survey.

Model Type: Ordinary least squares (Imai et al. 2007c).

*p ≤ .10; **p ≤ .05; ***p ≤ .01.

Chapter 3

did not participate in any voluntary civic organizations during their first year of college, while 68 percent reported that they did not participate in any political activities that year. Also recall that, with regard to their sense of political engagement, C-SNIP participants vastly preferred community involvement to political involvement as a means to solve important policy issues. Moreover, students who cited community involvement as their preferred mode of civic activity were less active in political activities, both during high school and during the first year of college. Keeping this in mind, it makes sense that civic talk has a less reliable influence on participation in political activities. If an individual is not willing to engage in an activity, influence from his or her social environment will likely have little effect on his or her behavior (Verba et al. 1995). This notion will be examined in greater detail in Chapter 5.

Voter Turnout

Table 3.5 provides an analysis of the effect of civic talk on voter participation. In this analysis, participation in other political activities is used as the measure of past experience because a sizeable portion of this student population was not eligible to vote before coming to college. In contrast to the

TABLE 3.5 The effect of civic talk on voter turnout during the first year of college (regression analysis)

	Matched	Unmatched
	(1)	(2)

Civic talk among roommates	.31†	.45***
	(.19)	(.14)
Participation in political activities	.14**	.10**
during high school	(.06)	(.05)
Constant	−2.11	−.61
	(2.20)	(1.01)
Akaike’s information criterion (AIC)	1,283	1,407

Source: C-SNIP Panel Survey.

Model Type: Logistic regression (Imai et al. 2007d).

Note: Dormitory assignment fixed effects were included in the analysis but are omitted from the table (none of the coefficients were statistically significant). AIC is twice the number of parameters in the model, minus twice the value of the model’s log-likelihood. This diagnostic statistic is presented for logistic regression models throughout the book because the Zelig statistical computing package in R (Imai et al. 2007a) does not produce an R2 statistic for logistic models. Standard errors are in parentheses. N = 1,044.

†p = .12; *p ≤ .10; **p ≤ .05; ***p ≤ .01.

Does Civic Talk Cause Civic Participation?

Change in Likelihood	of Voting
Expected

0.30

0.25

0.20

0.15

0.10

0.05

Civic Talk

Past Participation

FIGURE 3.2 Comparing the effects of civic talk and past participation on voter turnout during the first year of college

Source: C-SNIP Panel Survey

Notes: The line on each bar represents the 95 percent confidence interval about the estimate. Figures are based on the matched data regression analysis in Table 3.5. The effect of civic talk is calculated as the likelihood of voter turnout estimated among individuals who were exposed to civic talk, minus that of those who were not exposed, all other factors in the model held at their means. The effect of past participation is calculated by comparing the estimated levels of participation for subjects who had average levels of prior experience with those who had the maximum level of prior experience, all other factors in the model held at their means.

relationship between civic talk and participation in other political activities, the results show that civic talk had a positive effect on voter turnout. Looking at the results from the matched data set in column 1, subjects who engaged in civic talk were 7 percentage points more likely to have voted in the 2004 presidential primary.8 The effect of civic talk on turnout increases to 11 percentage points if the unmatched data are used.9

Mirroring the analysis presented in Figure 3.1, Figure 3.2 compares the effect that civic talk had on voter participation to the effect of having engaged in political participation in high school, the lagged dependent variable used in the analysis presented in Table 3.5. Compared with the 7 percentage point boost in turnout in 2004 due to civic talk, the estimated increase in turnout due to past participatory experience is estimated to be

8While the significance of the civic talk coefficient falls just below the 90 percent confidence threshold, the expected increase in turnout is estimated to be significant at the 95 percent level (see Figure 3.2).

9Again, it is worth noting that the matching procedure did not drastically affect the results. See fn. 7 for an explanation of why this is the case.

Chapter 3

15 percentage points. However, after taking the uncertainty about these estimates into account, the data show that civic talk and past experience participating in political activities had the same magnitude of effect on the likelihood of turning out to vote.

Does Civic Talk Cause Civic Participation?

Focus Group Evidence

In line with the quantitative survey data, each of the focus group sessions showed that there is a meaningful relationship between civic talk and civic participation. However, most of the participants were not explicitly aware of this relationship. At the end of each focus group, participants were directly asked whether engaging in civic talk with their roommates had an effect on how civically active they were. The modal response was no; the most common explanation offered for why these students chose to participate in civic activities was their own internal interest and motivation. A number of focus group participants made statements such as, “My choices were because of my own choices,” “If I’m going to involved, I’ll just, like, do it myself,” and “Because what [my roommate] does seems really boring to me, I don’t want to get involved.” In a related vein, other participants stated that they felt that their roommates did not have an effect on them because they did not agree with their roommates’ views on politics and current events. As one student summarized, “We both have different opinions, and I’m going to do what I want; she’s going to do what she wants. So . . . we don’t really influence each other so much.”

In thinking about why many of the focus group participants did not see the causal link between civic talk and civic participation, it is worth noting that directly asking people whether their social environment has an influence on how they behave may be a biased method for measuring the effect of civic talk. This is the case because human beings tend to attribute positive behaviors to their own qualities (and, conversely, negative behaviors to their environment). This is an example of what social psychologists refer to as the “self-serving motivational attribution bias” (see, e.g., Bernstein et al. 1979; Bradley 1978; Lau and Russell 1980; Reifenberg 1986; Ross and Fletcher 1985). For example, studies show that when asked to explain the grades they received, high-achieving students cite their hard work and intelligence, while students attribute low grades to external factors such as the difficulty of the test or “bad luck” (Bernstein et al. 1979; Reifenberg 1986). Thus, since civic participation is generally seen as a positive behavior in which to engage—recall that 91 percent of the C-SNIP

Does Civic Talk Cause Civic Participation?

Panel Survey respondents said that civic participation was important— it is not surprising that most of the focus group participants wanted to attribute their civic participation to their own desires rather than to the influence of their social environment.

This said, while the modal focus group participant did not explicitly acknowledge the link between civic talk and civic participation, a vocal minority of focus group participants did report that discussing politics and current events with their roommates had a direct effect on how civically active they were during their first year of college. For example, participants in each of the focus groups mentioned that engaging in civic talk caused them to become more interested in politics and current events. Other students mentioned that talking about the state of the environment with their roommates caused them to become more conscious about recycling and energy conservation. Other participants reported that their roommates had reminded them to vote in the 2008 presidential primary. One student even reported that he felt he might have caused his roommate to shift his choice in the primary election from a Republican candidate to Barack Obama.

In addition, before being directly asked whether civic talk with their roommates influenced how civically active they were during the first year of college, many of the participants in the focus groups indicated that this was the case without explicitly saying so. For example, many of the focus group participants reported that either they or their roommates had asked the other to get involved in a civic activity. Based on the proximity of the focus group sessions to the 2008 presidential primary election in Wisconsin, the most commonly mentioned events that roommates encouraged each other to go to or attended together were the Obama rally on February 13, 2008, and the presidential primary election. A number of participants also reported that they had attempted to persuade their roommates in some way about politics and current events. Again, based on the proximity in time of these groups to the 2008 presidential primary in the Wisconsin, most of the persuasion discussions were about the election and the candidates.

Conclusion

The purpose of this chapter is to document the causal relationship between civic talk and participation in civil society. Using quantitative panel survey data, in concert with qualitative focus group data, the evidence shows that civic talk can have a causal influence on how citizens

Chapter 3

participate in the processes of self-governance. This is the case even after accounting for how civically active subjects were before they engaged in civic talk, arguably one of the best measures of an individual’s predilection to participate in civic activities.

While civic talk has a meaningful effect on civic participation, however, it is essential to underscore that the results of this study do not suggest that sociological explanations of civic participation are a substitute for individual-level explanations. On the contrary: The C-SNIP data show that, depending on the act in question, the effect of civic talk on civic participation can be less than that of having prior participatory experience. The focus group data also show that while civic talk has an effect on how active individuals are in civil society, most people are not explicitly aware that this relationship exists. Instead, the majority of people attribute their patterns of behavior to their personal attributes instead of to the nature of their social context. Thus, the results presented in this chapter show that, to understand how contemporary participatory democracy functions, both social-level and individual-level antecedents of civic participation need to be considered. Neither factor on its own is a sufficient explanation of why an individual chooses to participate in civil society.

It is also important to note that while the main purpose of this chapter is not to assess how the influence of civic talk varies under different conditions, the results lend themselves to some initial conclusions. Both C-SNIP studies show that civic talk has a larger and more reliable effect on behavior in which individuals are predisposed to engage. For example, because the subjects in the study were not politically active or engaged, civic talk had no detectable influence on whether they participated in political activities. This question of how the relationship between civic talk and civic participation varies under different circumstances will be addressed in greater detail in Chapters 5 and 6.

In addition, while the evidence presented in this chapter shows that there is a causal relationship between civic talk and civic participation, it does not show why this is the case. That is the subject of the next chapter.

Why Does Civic Talk

Cause Civic Participation?

[My roommate] was voting on the primary day and I, like, wasn’t really planning on it just because I felt like I didn’t really know enough. I mean, I knew, I guess; I knew enough. But I was just, like, “No. I don’t even want to.” But she encouraged me to, and I did.

I feel a lot more interested. I really didn’t talk much politics in high school with anybody, and coming here, it’s, like, “Holy cow! We’re in the capital [city of Wisconsin], and everyone talks about politics all the time where I’m living.” So I think I’ve gained interest from talking to people.

—C-SNIP Focus Group Study participants

he previous chapter presented evidence of the causal relationship Tbetween civic talk and civic participation. Data from the C-SNIP Panel Survey show that civic talk increased participation in voluntary civic organizations by 38 percent. These same data show that civic

talk also increased the likelihood of turning out to vote by 7 percentage points. The positive effect of civic talk on civic participation appears, however, to be contingent on the individual’s motivation to participate. For example, the C-SNIP Panel Survey shows that civic talk had little effect on participation in political activities such as protesting, contacting elected officials, and political campaign work. This appears to be the case because the student population examined in this study is not politically active or engaged. Evidence from the qualitative focus groups led to the same conclusion.

While the previous chapter shows that there is a meaningful relationship between civic talk and civic participation, talk in and of itself cannot be what is driving individuals to participate. Talk about politics and current

Chapter 4

events must be generating other forces that encourage us to act. Therefore, the next logical step in this analysis is to determine what these other forces are. In this chapter, evidence from the C-SNIP Panel Survey and Focus Group Study are used to show that when we talk about politics and current events with our peers, we are asked by them to participate in civil society. These data also show that civic talk makes us more engaged with politics and current events.

Why Do We Participate in Civic Activities?

In attempting to answer why civic talk causes civic participation, it is necessary to ask why people choose to participate in civic activities in the first place. With this knowledge, we can determine what types of evidence are needed to assess why conversations about politics and current events lead individuals to participate in civic activities.

The simplest answer to this question is that the decision to participate is determined by the costs and benefits associated with participating. If the benefits outweigh the costs, a person is more likely to choose to participate (Downs 1957; Olson 1965; Verba et al. 1995). One of the most prolific articulations of this argument appears in Anthony Downs’s analysis of voter turnout in An Economic Theory of Democracy (1957). Downs shows that an individual decides whether to vote by comparing the costs associated with voting (e.g., time and energy) to the potential benefit of his or her vote being the decisive one in the election. On that basis, Downs concludes that voting is an irrational act, since even in small electorates any one vote is unlikely to be decisive. Mancur Olson offers a similar argument in his seminal examination of interest-group politics, The Logic of Collective Action (1965). He shows that individuals are more likely to contribute their time and money to an interest group if they receive selective benefits (i.e., excludable benefits that are only given to those who contribute to the group) to offset the costs associated with participation. Without such inducements, we have an incentive to “free ride” in the hope of receiving the public (i.e., non-excludable) benefits of interest groups’ lobbying without having to incur the costs associated with contributing to the effort.1

1For example, if an environmental interest group successfully lobbies for clean air legislation, everyone can enjoy the benefits of cleaner air regardless of whether they contributed to the cause.

Why Does Civic Talk Cause Civic Participation?

While the calculus of deciding whether to participate in civil society can easily be distilled down to a question of costs and benefits, it is necessary to dig deeper and ask what factors determine how costly and how beneficial it is to engage in civic activities. The extant literature on civic participation suggests four factors that drive the costs and benefits associated with civic participation: resources, civic engagement, recruitment, and norms.2

Resources

To illustrate how resources might help explain the relationship between civic talk and civic participation, consider the various factors that determine whether a person decides to vote. Information about the candidates and the issues at stake in the election is the most basic resource that this person would need to decide whether to vote (Popkin 1995). This is the case because when such informational resources are readily available, the act of voting becomes less costly. For example, the task of deciding who to vote for is easier if you already know the policy positions of the candidates in the race. Moreover, information can make the task of voting more beneficial. Information allows voters to cast their ballots for candidates who best support their preferences. Thus, if the candidate a voter selected wins an election and faithfully pursues the policy agenda on which he or she campaigned, this is beneficial to the voter.

Individuals can obtain civically relevant information from a number of sources. For example, our hypothetical voter could gather information by monitoring the news media, attending political rallies, sifting through pieces of direct mail sent by candidates and interest groups, and the like. However, this individual might also obtain information through conversations about politics and current events with the members of his or her social network (Conover et al. 2002; Downs 1957; Huckfeldt et al. 2000; Huckfeldt and Sprague 1995; Lazarsfeld et al. 1968; McClurg 2003; Popkin 1995; Walsh 2004). One benefit associated with seeking information in one’s social network is cost reduction. For example, talking about the current election over coffee with a friend is an easier way for an individual to obtain information than taking the time to read a newspaper. In

2Three of these factors—resources, engagement, and recruitment—make up Verba and colleagues’ (1995) “Civic Voluntarism Model.” Using survey data on the participatory habits of American citizens, Verba and his colleagues found that each of these three factors has an independent effect on the likelihood of becoming civically active.

Chapter 4

addition to being lower in cost, obtaining information from our peers is likely to be enjoyable. For example, an individual is more likely to enjoy discussing politics over a dinner out with friends than going to a candidate’s rally filled with strangers.3

Civic Engagement

Being civically engaged—having an interest in politics and current events and a sense of political efficacy—also motivates civic participation. This is the case even after accounting for how rich in resources a person is (Verba et al. 1995). Consider our hypothetical voter again. Regardless of how much information this person has on the campaign and the candidates, this citizen is unlikely to vote if he or she is not interested in politics and current events or if he or she does not feel that his or her vote will matter (Verba et al. 1995).

Civic engagement makes voting and other forms of civic participation easier to engage in largely by increasing the benefits associated with participation. For example, because any one vote is rarely decisive in an election, the tangible benefits of voting are largely non-existent (Downs 1957). However, if individuals are imbued with a strong sense of civic engagement, they will nonetheless find psychological satisfaction in voting because they are fulfilling their sense of civic duty. Moreover, because of their interest in politics and sense of political efficacy, the civically engaged among us are less likely to be concerned about the costs associated with participating in civic activities. For example, the opportunity cost of lost time at work in order to vote is likely to be perceived as less severe by individuals who are interested in politics and current events.

As with information, civic talk could increase an individual’s level of civic engagement. For example, talking about politics and current events in an informal social setting could lead an individual to learn about and become more interested in participating in civic activities (McClurg 2003). Extant research also shows that experiences in the family and in the school help solidify the political interest and efficacy that individuals carry with them for the rest of their lives (see, e.g., Verba et al. 1995). Perhaps interactions in collegiate peer groups, such as those documented in the C-SNIP data sets, do the same.

3Otherwise stated, and as discussed in Chapter 2, the political content we get from conversations with our peers is typically a “byproduct” of social interactions based on non-political goals such as socializing.

Why Does Civic Talk Cause Civic Participation?

Recruitment

Even the most engaged and resource-rich individuals among us will be more likely to participate in civic activities if they are mobilized by someone else to act (Gerber and Green 2000; Nickerson 2008; Rosenstone and Hansen 1993; Verba et al. 1995). Consider our hypothetical voter again. This individual will be more likely to vote if he or she is motivated to do some by someone else (Gerber and Green 2000; Nickerson 2008; Rosenstone and Hansen 1993).4 Recruitment is effective at eliciting civic participation because it makes the process of taking action less costly. For example, if a political party volunteer offers to give you a ride to the polls, the task of voting becomes much easier for you. Moreover, in some circumstances recruitment might affect the benefits associated with civic participation. For example, if a religious leader asked his or her parishioners to vote, those individuals might feel obliged to do so to maintain the benefit of membership in good standing in the church.

Existing research suggests that the face-to-face style of recruitment that one would expect to arise out of peer networks may be especially effective at eliciting civic participation (Brady et al. 1999; Gerber and Green 2000; Godwin and Mitchell 1984; Klofstad 2007). For example, through an experimental study of voters in New Haven, Connecticut, Gerber and Green (2000) show that door-to-door neighborhood canvassing is more effective at stimulating voter participation than less direct methods such as phone calls and pamphlets sent through the mail. In a similar vein, Brady and his colleagues (1999, 157) hypothesize that “recruiters who have a close relationship to their prospects should have two advantages: They are more likely to have information about the activity potential of the target and more likely to have the leverage that makes acquiescence to a request probable.” Their analysis offers support for this hypothesis; recruitment to participate in political activities was estimated to be 28 percent more effective if the target was already acquainted with the recruiter.

Social Norms

Finally, social norms—“beliefs about which behaviors are acceptable and which are unacceptable for specific persons in specific situations”

4In fact, Rosenstone and Hansen (1993) show that about 50 percent of the drop-off in voter turnout in the United States between the 1960s and the 1980s was caused by declines in face-to-face mobilization, such as neighborhood canvassing, by the political parties.

Chapter 4

(Michener and DeLamater 1999, 64)—can have a powerful effect on individual behavior (Crandall 1988; Festinger et al. 1950; Latané and Wolf 1981; Mendelberg 2002; Michener and DeLamater 1999; Putnam 2000; Schachter 1959). For example, consider once again a hypothetical voter who is fully stocked with resources, engagement, and recruitment. This individual is already going to be quite likely to vote but will be even more likely to do so if he or she adheres to civic-minded norms. For example, Putnam (2000) shows that Americans were more civically active when norms of social trust and reciprocity were more prevalent in society. Such norms, he argues, lead individuals to be integrated into events and issues outside their own personal sphere. In other words, pro-civic norms make civic participation more beneficial, since the individuals that adhere to them feel the need to contribute to wider society. Moreover, when norms dictate that civic participation is a necessary activity in a society, violating those rules by failing to participate is costly to the social deviant (e.g., one experiences “cognitive dissonance”—a sense of psychological discomfort— over having violated the norm).

Norms are especially germane to the study of civic talk among peers because, along with the family and the school, the peer group is one of the most important transmitters of social norms that an individual encounters during his or her lifetime (Beck 1977; Dawson et al. 1977; Michener and DeLamater 1999; Silbiger 1977; Walsh 2004). Findings from the field of social psychology suggest why this is the case. Research by Latané and Wolf (1981) on social impact theory shows that social influence is stronger when the socializing agent is close and sustained—what they term “immediate”— the way a peer group is. In a similar vein, Festinger and his colleagues (1950, 163) show in their seminal examination of social interaction in a student housing unit at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that “it is through the small face-to-face groups that many attitudes and ideologies which affect our behavior are transmitted.” Thus, because social networks are typically composed of close and sustained social relationships, they can be expected to have normative influence on their members. If peers transmit civic-minded norms during civic talk discussions, looking for these norms in peer networks might help explain how civic talk leads individuals to participate in civic activities.

Why Does Civic Talk Cause Civic Participation?

Survey Evidence

Measures

RESOURCES

To see if the transfer of informational resources occurs among peers, C-SNIP Panel Survey respondents were asked, “How many times have your roommates given you any information about how to become active in politics and current events: often, sometimes, rarely, or never?” On average, students reported exposure to such information somewhere between “never” and “rarely” (an average of .4 on the 0–3 scale ranging from “never” to “often”).

ENGAGEMENT

Increased civic engagement as a consequence of civic talk was first measured by asking, “Thinking about how interested you were in politics and current events before you came to the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has talking with your roommates increased your interest in politics and current events: very much, somewhat, not that much, or not at all?” On average, students reported enhanced engagement somewhere between “not at all” and “not that much” (an average of .7 on the 0–3 scale ranging from “not at all” to “very much”). A second measure of civic engagement is based on each student’s level of political efficacy, measured with the survey question, “How much would you agree or disagree with this statement: ‘People like me don’t have any say about what the government does’: strongly agree, somewhat agree, neither agree nor disagree, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree?” On average, students reported that they neither agreed nor disagreed with the idea that they do not have a say in what the government does (an average of 3.4 on the 1–5 scale ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”).

RECRUITMENT

Peer-to-peer recruitment was measured by asking, “How many times have your roommates asked you to participate in an event or organization related to politics and current events: often, sometimes, rarely, or never?” On average, students reported enhanced engagement somewhere between “never” and “rarely” (an average of .3 on the 0–3 scale ranging from “never” to “often”).

Chapter 4

SOCIAL NORMS

While norms are rules of social conduct, they typically are not formally codified. This leaves us in danger of misusing the concept as a “garbage can” to explain a host of different phenomena that may or may not actually be attributable to norms. Therefore, to develop a multidimensional picture of the potential impact of norms on the relationship between civic talk and civic participation, this analysis uses two different measurement strategies: behavioral modeling and civic-minded attitudes.

Norms are often learned by observing and modeling the behavior of others (Crandall 1988; McClurg 2004; Michener and DeLamater 1999). Accordingly, one measure of norms used in this analysis is the individual’s perception of his or her peers as measured by the question, “How active and interested do you think your roommate is in politics and current events: very, somewhat, not very, or not at all?” Under the assumption that individuals learn how to behave by observing the actions of others, this measure serves as a proxy for civic norms by capturing how civically active an individual’s roommate is. On average, students reported that they thought their roommates were “not very” to “somewhat” active (a mean of 1.4 on the 0–3 scale ranging from “not at all” to “very”).

A second measure of norms focuses on attitudes rather than behaviors. This measure was calculated as each respondent’s response to the question, “How important do you think it is for people like you to be active and interested in politics and current events: very important, somewhat important, not very important, or not at all important?” The expectation is that if an individual begins to feel that civic participation is important as a consequence of engaging in civic talk, he or she may feel pressure to become more active in civil society. On average, respondents felt that civic engagement and participation is somewhere between “somewhat” and “very” important (a mean of 2.3 on the 0–3 scale ranging from “not at all” to “very”).

Basic Correlations

If resources, engagement, recruitment, and norms help explain how civic talk influences us to participate in civic activities, these factors should correlate with both the amount of civic talk occurring in the peer network and the amount of civic participation in which a person engages. The results in Table 4.1 support this expectation. Civic talk correlates with information transfers, increased psychological engagement with politics and current events, enhanced political efficacy, instances of recruitment, and

Why Does Civic Talk Cause Civic Participation?

TABLE 4.1 Explaining the civic talk effect (correlations)

	Civic talk	Participation in
	among	voluntary civic	Political	Voter
Causal mechanisms	roommates	organizations	participation	turnout

Resources	.38***	.15***	.09***	.10***
Engagement
Interest in politics and
current events	.45***	.13***	.10***	.12***
Political efficacy	.11***	.14***	.14***	.11***
Recruitment	.31***	.16***	.12***	.09***
Norms
Perceived activity/interest
level of roommate	.40***	.03	−.01	.07***
Perceived importance of
civic participation	.18***	.20***	.22***	.16***

Source: C-SNIP Panel Survey.
***p ≤ .01.

the acceptance of pro-civic norms. In turn, resources, engagement, recruitment, and norms correlate with higher levels of civic participation. Some of these correlations are not extraordinarily large, but they are all positive and statistically significant.

The only exception in Table 4.1 is the perception of how active and interested one’s roommate is in civic activities. These results show that students who engaged in civic talk became aware that their roommates were active and interested in civic activities, which makes sense. If someone you know frequently discusses a certain topic, it is safe to assume that he or she is interested in that subject. However, knowing that their roommates are active and interested in civic activities appears to have little influence over how active students are in civil society. This suggests that behavioral modeling is not likely to be a mechanism that governs the relationship between civic talk and civic participation.

Multivariate Analysis: “Explaining Away” Civic Talk with Causal Mechanisms

The correlations listed in Table 4.1 are necessary evidence for resources, engagement, recruitment, and norms to be viable explanations of the civic talk effect. If there are no bivariate statistical relationships among these four factors, civic talk, and civic participation, it is unlikely that they are acting as the mechanisms that cause individuals to translate talk into

Chapter 4

action. However, to validate these findings with more sufficient evidence, it is useful to turn to a multivariate analysis.5 To test whether resources, engagement, recruitment, and norms help explain the civic talk effect, measures of these concepts were added to the regression analyses presented in Chapter 3. The goal of adding these variables to the model is to “explain away” the civic talk effect. If resources, engagement, recruitment, and norms explain how we translate discussions about politics and current events with peers into civic participation, the civic talk coefficient should drop in value after these variables are added to the model. This will only occur if resources, engagement, and recruitment account for the variance in civic participation that was once accounted for by civic talk.6

The result of this analysis on participation in voluntary civic organizations is presented in Table 4.2. The results show that resources, engagement, recruitment, and civic-minded norms help explain the civic talk effect. For each causal mechanism, the civic talk regression coefficient drops in value after adding the causal mechanism variable to the analysis. However, unlike the civic talk coefficient, the lagged dependent variable coefficient is not affected when the causal mechanism variables are added. As anticipated, then, in this analysis the addition of resources, engagement, recruitment, and norms accounts only for the variance once explained by civic talk.

Closer examination of the causal mechanism coefficients in Table 4.2 gives us greater insight into how individuals translate civic talk into civic participation. Moving from the left to the right in the table, adding resources to the analysis in column 2 led to the second-largest drop in the value of the civic talk coefficient (15 percent). However, the direct effect of resources on participation in voluntary organizations is uncertain, since the resource coefficient is not statistically significant. Column 3 shows that adding interest in politics and current events to the analysis only led to a 5 percent drop in the value of the civic talk coefficient. Moreover, the interest coefficient itself is not statistically significant. The efficacy measure of civic engagement (column 4) also led to a 5 percent decline in the civic talk coefficient. However, unlike interest, the efficacy coefficient is

5The perceived activity/interest level of one’s roommate was omitted from this analysis because this variable does not correlate significantly with how active one chooses to be in most civic activities (see Table 4.1).

6Campbell and Wolbrecht (2006) use the same technique to explain the relationship between greater numbers of women serving in elected office and greater levels of political engagement among female adolescents. As a germane side note, Campbell and Wolbrecht find that the mechanism that links these two phenomena together is political discussion within the family.

Why Does Civic Talk Cause Civic Participation?

TABLE 4.2 Explaining the effect of civic talk on participation in voluntary civic organizations during the first year of college (regression analysis)

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)
Civic talk among	.81**	.69*	.77**	.77**	.67*	.76**
roommates	(.30)	(.33)	(.31)	(.31)	(.33)	(.32)
Participation in voluntary	.22***	.22***	.22***	.21***	.22***	.21***
civic organizations	(.03)	(.03)	(.03)	(.03)	(.03)	(.03)
during high school
Causal mechanisms
Resources		.23
		(.20)
Engagement
Interest in politics			.06
and current events			(.16)
Political efficacy				.26**
				(.11)
Recruitment					.50*
					(.25)
Norms (perceived						.72***
importance of						(.23)
civic participation)
Constant	1.67	1.66	1.65	.94	1.53	−.15
	(1.76)	(1.78)	(1.76)	(1.85)	(1.74)	(1.88)
Adjusted R2	.13	.13	.13	.14	.14	.15
Percent change in		−15	−5	−5	−17	−6
civic talk coefficient

Source: C-SNIP Panel Survey.

Model Type: Ordinary least squares (Imai et al. 2007c).

Columns: (1) Base model. (2)–(6) Base model with addition of individual causal mechanisms as indicated within the body of the table.

Note: Dormitory assignment fixed effects were included in the analysis but are omitted from the table (none of the coefficients were statistically significant). The matched data set is used in this analysis (see Appendix C). Standard errors are in parentheses. N = 1,044.

*p ≤ .10; **p ≤ .05; ***p ≤ .01.

statistically significant. Adding the recruitment measure to the regression analysis in column 5 led to the largest decline in the value of the civic talk coefficient (17 percent). Moreover, the recruitment coefficient itself is statistically significant. Finally, adding civic-minded norms in column 6 only caused a 6 percent decline in the value of the civic talk coefficient. However, the coefficient is statistically significant, showing that norms have a more stable relationship with participation than do resources and interest in politics and current events.7

7These results hold if all of the causal mechanism variables are added to the model simultaneously.

Chapter 4

Table 4.3 applies the same style of analysis to the case of voter turnout. Again, the results show that adding the four causal mechanisms helps explain the effect of civic talk on civic participation. In fact, the causal mechanism variables appear to do a better job of explaining the relationship between civic talk and voter turnout. The average reduction in the

TABLE 4.3 Explaining the effect of civic talk on voter turnout during the first year of college (regression analysis)

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)

Civic talk among	.31†	.23	.19	.28	.27	.29
roommates	(.19)	(.21)	(.19)	(.18)	(.18)	(.19)
Participation in political	.14**	.14**	.14**	.13**	.14**	.12**
activities during	(.06)	(.06)	(.06)	(.06)	(.06)	(.06)
high school
Causal mechanisms
Resources		.17
		(.12)
Engagement
Interest in politics			.19*
and current events			(.11)
Political efficacy				.19***
				(.07)
Recruitment					.16
					(.17)
Norms (perceived						.32*
importance of						(.16)
civic participation)
Constant	−2.11	−2.12	−2.18	−2.67	−2.16	−2.87
	(2.20)	(2.20)	(2.21)	(2.29)	(2.19)	(2.19)
Akaike’s information	1,283	1,282	1,280	1,276	1,283	1,278
criterion (AIC)
Percent change in		−26	−39	−10	−13	−6
civic talk coefficient

Source: C-SNIP Panel Survey.

Model Type: Logistic regression (Imai et al. 2007d).

Columns: (1) Base model. (2)–(6) Base model with addition of individual causal mechanisms, as indicated within the body of the table.

Note: AIC is twice the number of parameters in the model, minus twice the value of the model’s log-likelihood. Dormitory assignment fixed effects were included in the analysis but are omitted from the table (none of the coefficients were statistically significant). The matched data set is used in this analysis (see Appendix C). While the significance of the civic talk coefficient in column 3 falls just below the 90 percent confidence threshold, the expected increase in turnout is estimated to be significant at the 95 percent level (see Figure 3.2). Standard errors are in parentheses. N = 1,044.

†p ≤ .12; *p ≤ .10; **p ≤ .05; ***p ≤ .01.

Why Does Civic Talk Cause Civic Participation?

civic talk coefficient is 19 percent in the analysis of voter turnout, compared with 10 percent in the analysis of participation in voluntary civic organizations.

As with Table 4.2, closer examination of each column in Table 4.3 gives greater insight into how each of these causal mechanisms functions. Moving from left to right in the table, adding informational resources in column 2 reduced the civic talk coefficient by 26 percent. However, the information coefficient is not significant. In column 3, adding interest in politics and current events to the analysis led to the largest decline in value of the civic talk coefficient (39 percent). Moreover, the interest coefficient meets a minimal standard for statistical significance. The direct influence of political efficacy on voter turnout (column 4) is also statistically significant. However, efficacy has far less of an effect on the civic talk coefficient (a 10 percent decline in value) than interest in politics and current events. Adding recruitment to the analysis in column 5 leads to a 13 percent decline in the value of the civic talk coefficient. However, the recruitment coefficient is not statistically significant. Finally, as in the analysis of voluntary civic memberships, adding norms to the analysis in column 6 led to only a 6 percent decline in the voter turnout civic talk coefficient. However, the norms coefficient is statistically significant, showing that norms have a more systematic impact on voter turnout than resources or recruitment.8

Differences between Voluntary Civic

Organizations and Voting

All four causal mechanisms offer some level of explanation of the relationship between civic talk and civic participation. However, in the case of participation in voluntary organizations, recruitment plays the largest and most consistent role in explaining this relationship. In contrast, civic engagement carries more of the explanatory load for voter turnout.

This difference makes sense considering the uniqueness of the vote as a civic act. Since the probability that any one vote will affect the outcome of an election is small (Downs 1957), very few tangible benefits are associated with voting. Consequently, a prospective voter must be motivated by a sense of civic engagement to see the benefit of participating. In contrast, participation in the voluntary civic organizations examined in this

8Again, these results hold if all of the causal mechanism variables are added to the model simultaneously.

Chapter 4

study (i.e., student groups) comes with tangible benefits. For example, students receive social (i.e., “solidary”) benefits because they get to socialize with each other as they participate in student organizations. Participation in voluntary student organizations also allows individuals to build their résumés. Thus, it makes sense that being recruited to participate in this form of civic activity caries more explanatory weight than being civically engaged.9

Why Does Civic Talk Cause Civic Participation?

Focus Group Evidence

Resources

The focus group sessions revealed that information transfers were pervasive during civic talk discussions. As discussed in Chapter 3, the vast majority of the information about politics and current affairs being shared by roommates was germane to current events. Given the proximity of the focus group sessions to the 2008 presidential primary in Wisconsin, most of these conversations centered on the campaign (and especially on the candidacy of Senator Barack Obama). As also discussed in Chapter 3, the majority of these information transfers were caused by the consumption of news media content. Most of the participants in the focus groups mentioned that they or their roommates would initiate a civic talk conversation to relay factual information, and to articulate opinions, about the events of the day after watching or reading the news.

However, in line with the survey results showing that, on average, respondents were exposed to information about how to become civically active somewhere between “never” and “rarely,” only a minority of the focus groups’ participants reported that they shared information with their roommates about the civic activities in which they engage. Most of the participants in each of the focus groups reported that they had discussed attending candidate rallies or voting during the 2008 presidential primary season. A much smaller group of participants, however, mentioned that either they or their roommates discussed participation in student organizations, such as Habitat for Humanity; religious organizations; occupational or field-of-study groups; campus-based partisan organizations;

9A related explanation is that the measure of civic engagement used in this analysis is interest in politics and current events. Since the voluntary civic organizations assessed in this study are largely a-political, it makes sense that interest in politics and current events has less of an effect on participation in voluntary civic organizations than on voting.

Why Does Civic Talk Cause Civic Participation?

and the like. A few focus group participants also reported that they or their roommates had explicitly mentioned how to become involved in those activities.10

A number of focus group participants also reported that they relayed information to their roommates to persuade them about politics and current events. Again, based on the proximity of the focus groups to the 2008 presidential primary in the Wisconsin, it is not surprising that most of these persuasion conversations centered on the election and the candidates. These types of statements were typical in all four of the focus group discussions:

I’ve been in that situation. I’ve always tried to persuade my roommate that it’s a really good idea to be a Democrat, and care about politics, and hate George Bush on principle.

My roommate always tries to persuade me. She used to be an Obama fan, but now she’s Hillary [sic]. She always tries to persuade me to vote for her, too.

I kind of tried to convince my roommate about Obama, . . .

because I think she was . . . I think she liked [John] McCain, and I convinced her to go up to the Obama rally.

However, while such persuasion attempts were pervasive, many participants in each of the focus groups mentioned that they actively avoided trying to persuade their roommates about politics and current events. In line with the results presented in Chapter 3, these students reported that they chose to not engage in persuasion to avoid conflict with their roommates. As one participant succinctly stated, “I don’t try to persuade him. I just leave it alone.”

Engagement

When directly asked whether civic talk conversations with roommates increased their interest in politics and current events, the participants in each of the focus groups provided a mix of responses between “yes” and “no.” This result is in line with the survey results showing that, on average, students reported enhanced engagement via civic talk somewhere between “not at all” and “not that much.”

10This phenomenon is considered in more detail in the section on evidence of recruitment gathered in the focus group sessions.

Chapter 4

A notable number of participants in each of the focus groups did, however, report that their civic engagement was enhanced as a consequence of interacting with roommates. Many of these statements were linked to the desire to increase civic knowledge and competence:

The conversation might travel into a gray area, where it’s like, “Hey, I don’t know as much about this, and now I want to, because I want to be able to carry on these conversations and really feel like I have things to back up my opinion with.”

I’d say it increases [my interest]. Just like wanting to learn more and, like, look at all the different points of view and see what other people think.

If someone talks about something a lot, you can, like, think twice about it, maybe.

Further evidence of enhanced engagement vis-à-vis civic talk is also present when the different focus groups are compared with one another. Two of the focus groups consisted of students who said that they frequently engaged in civic talk with their roommates, while the other two consisted of students who reported that they discussed politics and current events infrequently. Statements regarding enhanced engagement were more prevalent when civic talk was more frequent.

Recruitment

A large number of students in each of the focus group sessions reported that recruitment attempts did occur while roommates engaged in civic talk. Also, comparing the “low” and “high” civic talk focus groups showed that recruitment attempts were more common among the participants in the “high talk” groups, indicating a positive relationship between civic talk and recruitment. Based on the proximity of the focus group sessions to the 2008 presidential primary in the Wisconsin, most of these recruiting attempts concerned attending rallies for candidates (specifically the large rally for Obama held on the night of February 13, 2008) or turning out to vote in the presidential primary. A smaller group of students reported that either they or a roommate had made recruitment attempts for nonpolitical student organizations. Many participants in each of the focus groups reported that these recruitment attempts were successful, especially concerning attending candidates’ rallies and turning out to vote in the presidential primary.

Why Does Civic Talk Cause Civic Participation?

It is necessary to highlight, however, that while recruitment was pervasive, it was not universally effective. Chapter 3 showed that the relationship between civic talk and political participation is weak because the C-SNIP Panel Survey student population was not interested in participating in political activities. In the same vein, the focus group data indicate that recruitment attempts were effective only when the students had some basic level of interest in becoming active in civil society. This exchange is especially illustrative of this trend in the data:

MODERATOR: Going back to conversations you have with your roommates about events and current events and things like that, do you ever talk with your roommates about getting involved in civic activities or campus activities of any kind?

PARTICIPANT: Such as?

MODERATOR: Any sorts of political or campus organizations, political events that may be going on. A couple of you mentioned the rallies and things like that, things of that nature.

PARTICIPANT: Like a student government something or not?

MODERATOR: Yeah, absolutely.

PARTICIPANT: Because my roommate is, like, seriously involved in student government.

MODERATOR: Really?

PARTICIPANT: Yeah. He’s as high as a freshman could get in [student government], and he’s in [the dormitory’s] student government. Like, he’s super-involved, so he’s really active, and he’s, like, tried to get me to go to stuff, and I don’t.

MODERATOR: What kind of stuff does he . . .

PARTICIPANT: I don’t know. He’s like, “You should come, like, to the meetings and, like, be a part of it.” And I was like, “Yeah, maybe.” And then I didn’t. And then he was like, “You should come to the kick-off, because, like, you know, just to learn about [it].” And I was, like, “Yeah, maybe.” And then I didn’t. And then he was, like, “You know, you should like join an e-mail list.” And I’m, like, “Ahhh . . . maybe.”

MODERATOR: So he’s very explicitly asking you to get involved in this stuff.

PARTICIPANT: Yeah, he’s really into it.

Chapter 4

MODERATOR: And what would you say is your reasoning? Why do you choose not to get involved in it?

PARTICIPANT: . . . Basically because I don’t really care about school or local politics, and so I don’t want to get involved.

This idea that civic talk has an effect only on individuals who are already primed to participate in civil society is examined in detail in Chapter 5.

Social Norms

In the C-SNIP Panel Survey analysis, civic-minded social norms were operationalized in two ways: modeling the behavior of one’s roommate and adhering to the idea that civic participation is an important activity in which to engage. With regard to behavioral norms, the focus group participants were not directly asked whether they knew how civically active their roommates were. However, it appears that most of the participants had some notion of their roommates’ patterns of civic participation. For example, in the discussion of whether recruitment occurred during civic talk conversations, many participants revealed that they knew that their roommates either were or were not participating in civic activities. As also discussed in Chapter 3, when specifically asked what topics they discussed when engaging in civic talk, a number of participants mentioned that they talked about the civic activities in which they or their roommates engaged.

In line with the correlations presented in Table 4.1, however, the focus groups did not reveal any direct evidence that participants felt compelled to model the civic behavior of their roommates. As discussed in the analyses of information sharing and recruitment, a number of focus group participants revealed that they had been recruited or persuaded to participate in civic activities by their roommates (especially with regard to the presidential primaries in 2008). This said, none of the focus group participants stated that they had witnessed their roommates participating and subsequently chose to model that behavior. Moreover, as also discussed, some focus group participants were actually “turned off” to civic participation as a consequence of engaging in civic talk with civically active roommates.

With regard to social norms as civic-minded attitudes, the focus group participants were not asked directly whether civic talk increased their sense of obligation to participate in civic activities. However, as documented in the analysis of civic engagement, a number of focus group participants reported that they became more interested in politics and current

Why Does Civic Talk Cause Civic Participation?

events as a consequence of engaging in civic talk. This enhanced level of interest likely translates into a stronger sense of civic-mindedness. Evidence from the C-SNIP Panel Survey corroborates this assumption. Students who became more interested in politics and current events as a result of engaging in civic talk also felt more strongly about the need to participate in civic activities (r = .14, p < .01).

Conclusion

The purpose of this chapter has been to explain why civic talk causes civic participation. I began with a review of the factors that are known to motivate individuals to participate in civil society. Simply stated, individuals are more likely to participate in civic activities when the costs are low and the benefits are high. Specifically, four factors affect the costs and benefits associated with participating in civil society: resources (information), engagement (interest and efficacy), recruitment (being asked to participate), and civic-minded social norms. An analysis of the C-SNIP Panel Survey and focus group data shows that these four factors help to explain how individuals translate civic talk into civic participation. Of the four, recruitment (in the case of participation in voluntary civic organizations) and enhanced civic engagement (in the case of voter turnout) appear to carry the most explanatory weight.

However, in line with findings in Chapter 3, this exploration of causal mechanisms reveals that the relationship between civic talk and civic participation is not constant across all conditions. For example, the C-SNIP Panel Survey data show that, when we discuss politics and current events, we are asked by our peers to participate in civic activities, and these instances of recruitment make us more likely to participate in civil society. However, an examination of the focus group data shows that while civic talk does lead to recruitment, these attempts are not always successful. Instead, the data show that the targets of recruitment need to have some basic level of interest in participating. If they do not, recruitment will have no effect no matter how much they are asked to participate by their peers.

In response to the growing amount of evidence suggesting that the relationship between civic talk and civic participation is not constant across all conditions, the next two chapters dig more deeply into this phenomenon by examining how the civic talk effect varies under different circumstances.

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