Par Maxime Coulombe, André Blais et Ruth Dassonneville
Résumé : Do people vote to meet others’ approval or to avoid their disapproval if they were to abstain? We examine the role of injunctive norms on turnout by means of discussion network data from an original survey module in the Austrian National Election Study. We improve on previous measures of injunctive norms by asking respondents whether their political discussants would disapprove if they abstained. We find that about half of the respondents believe that people around them would be disappointed if they did not vote and that disapproval expectations matter for turnout, but only among those with a weak sense of civic duty. Our study contributes to a better understanding of how individual perceptions about social norms matter for voter turnout.